If you find yourself walking the woods of the Broad Top mountain be careful where you step or more precisely where you sit. A legend passed from the 1800's tells the tale of a lumberjack who sat on a log one day to enjoy his lunch. His face turned a pale white when he realized his crude bench began to move. Since then tales have surfaced and sightings have occurred of an exorbitant serpent roaming the lands.
Numerous locals in the Huntingdon county area pass along tales of an 18-20 foot long snake with yellow markings around its neck and eyes. Travelers through the rural area have reported running over small logs only to spot them slither across the road. During the 1950's several strip miners in the area also recognized an abnormally sized serpent roaming the mountaintop.
Broad Top mountain isn't the only place in Pennsylvania where large snakes have been spotted. Several years ago in York county a gentleman found a massive snakeskin in the woods. Others in the county have reported spotting a snake as large as 14' long and over 18" inches in diameter. This is certainly not an indigenous creature leading many to believe these sightings should be attributed to careless pet owners. But many years before owning exotic snakes was a common practice, many Gettysburg citizens claimed to have spotted an immeasurable snake slithering throughout the nearby thickets. This vermin evoked so much fear in the residents that he was named "the devil." The vast monster was thought to make his home in a nearby boulder field which was affectionately known as "Devil's Den."
Those who study snakes often attribute these sightings to large black snakes. Though new evidence has surfaced showing that a species known as the pine snake has been spotted throughout several isolated pockets of the Appalachian states. The snake has been known to grow quite lengthy, but doesn't measure much more than a few inches in width. If you find yourself hiking or camping near the Appalachian mountain range and see a colossal creature slithering by, don't say you weren't warned!