It ran along the stream bed to the foot of the Allegheny Front, then climbed half of the line's 886 feet (270 m) vertical rise via a unique series of switchbacks in a steep box canyon near 40°59′N 77°53′W / 40.99°N 77.88°W / 40.99; -77.88.
The Snow Shoe branch has been abandoned, but the Nittany and Bald Eagle Railroad shortline still runs the lines from Tyrone to Lock Haven and Bellefonte.
During the Appalachian orogeny, sedimentary rock layers on the supercontinent of Pangaea were folded, forming a huge mountain range.
The oldest rock layers from deep within the eroded mountain are now exposed on the east side of the Bald Eagle ridge.
Younger rocks from the outer layers of the arch are exposed in the Bald Eagle Valley, with the youngest at the foot of the Allegheny Front.
The rock layers in the valley were folded from horizontal to almost vertical, and now read like pages in a geologic history book covering the entire Devonian period.
[3] Erosion resistant Silurian Tuscarora Formation quartzite left the Bald Eagle ridge standing above the valley.
Durable Lock Haven Formation mudstone forms a parallel series of steep elongated knolls running west of the floodplain, some almost as high as the ridge.