The Potomac Highlands Dispatch
Phone: 301-264-3147
Email: [email protected]
P.O. Box 651
Mount Savage, MD 21545
Big Savage Tunnel opens
* Sure-fire sign that Spring is here
By Kevin Spradlin
PhDispatch.com
DEAL, Pa., March 17 -- Throw out that silly calendar.
As area temperatures climbed into the 60s just a day after a light snow dusted western Allegany County, volunteers from Somerset County, Pa., opened the large aluminum doors to the Big Savage Tunnel. It's the closest sure-fire sign of Spring in the region.
Situated at the high point of the Great Allegheny Passage, the tunnel provides a refreshingly cool oasis of breathable air for 3,294 feet even in the dog days of Summer.
From early December until the weather begins to clear, though, the only good way to get from Meyersdale, Pa., to Frostburg and Cumberland on safely on bicycle is closed. Visitors from Georgia arrived in town three weeks ago and wondered aloud, "why is the tunnel closed?"
Of course, it was right in the middle of a typical Mountain Maryland winter. Temperatures warmed, however, and though a bit of snow remains on the ground in Somerset County, the tunnel is now open for business.
Frostburg-area resident and avid cyclist Kurt Detwiler is generally the last to ride through the tunnel before it closes for the winter and the first to ride through when it opens. The only time that didn't happen was Spring 2006, when the season's first ride through the tunnel was auctioned off on eBay.
Detwiler was there again on Thursday at the east entrance to the tunnel, one foot on a pedal and one foot holding him and his frame steady on the ground.
Detwiler was all smiles as he pedaled northwest towards Deal.