they take advantage of the thermals — rising pockets of warm air — to facilitate flying, until the thermals cease in late afternoon. Among the bird-banding stations and migratory bird observatories associated with this flyway are: Allegheny Front Hawk Watch on the border between Bedford and Somerset counties, Pennsylvania. On 20 September 2003, after the remnants of Hurricane Isabel passed western Pennsylvania, 833 hawks were counted passing the site. The Allegheny Front Hawk Watch set three Eastern Flyway Golden Eagle records during the 2015 migration. The first was counting 74 Golden Eagle on October 24, 2015. This helped propel the hawk site to a new fall record of 320 Golden Eagles being counted during the fall migration. This coupled with the 66 goldens counted in the spring of 2015, yielded a total of 386 migrating birds for the year. Allegheny Front Migratory Observatory (Bird Banding Station) near the Red Creek Campground at Dolly Sods, West Virginia. The station is open from August to October in good weather. Established in 1958, it is the only cooperative banding station in West Virginia. The Dolly Sods area In the Dolly Sods area of West Virginia, and southward toward Mount Porte Crayon, the Front is topped for more than by a broad, nearly flat plateau with many wide areas of exposed bedrock along the edge of the escarpment's drop to the North Fork River to the east, along the Front's base. Many of these windswept cliff-edge outcrops are sparsely vegetated, with occasional one-sided (flagged) red spruce (Picea rubens) trees, and open habitats dominated by various low-growing Appalachian and boreal plant species. Economic importance The long, steep, nearly continuous, often windswept escarpment of the Allegheny Front has both positive and negative effects on society and culture in the central Appalachians region. Challenge to transportation and communication Few roads or railroads cross the Allegheny Front, limiting transportation and communication between the regions to its east and west. Establishing passage of the Front was key to the development of the U.S. railroad network during the second half of the 19th century, thereby connecting the Midwest by rail with the Atlantic seaboard. The Pennsylvania Railroad built the Horseshoe Curve track section west of Altoona, so that freight trains could ascend and descend to or from the Allegheny Plateau to the west. Recreation and tourism Substantial portions of the Allegheny Front's crest and slopes are parts of a national