From a NPS.gov online article:
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (NHP) is considered one of the best walking parks in America. The views are sublime, the history compelling, the restored town a work of historical art. The variety of trails coupled with nationally significant history and the scenery of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Potomac and Shenandoah river valleys adds up to a unique hiking experience. Harpers Ferry NHP encompasses almost 4,000 acres in West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia, and several units of the national park system intersect here. As the mid-point of the 2,178-mile Appalachian National Scenic Trail (AT), Harpers Ferry is home to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC), the headquarters for the AT. Visitors can also walk along the 184.5-mile-long towpath of Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park by crossing the footbridge over the Potomac River. The Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail overlays the C&O Canal and continues north all the way to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
More than a million years ago, snow fell on Greenland in the summer. Temperatures were low enough that it stuck, and the ice pack accumulated over the millenniums, eventually stacking higher than 10,000 feet and covering over 700,000 square miles. This frozen desert supported no life. Temperatures regularly ran dozens of degrees below zero, especially during the many months the sun declined to appear. As one 18th-century visitor recorded, the ice sheet was a frigid, deadly place that had “no use to mankind.”
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