Warren sits where the Conewango Creek meets the Allegheny River, in the far northwest of Pennsylvania, and the Allegheny National Forest rolls away on every side. It is a small old city of about nine thousand, a county seat with a courthouse, a downtown of brick and stone buildings built on oil and lumber money, and a long river park. The place was named for General Joseph Warren, a hero of the Revolution who died at Bunker Hill.
The river is the story. The Seneca, one of the nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, called themselves the people of the longhouse, and the scenic byway here takes its name from that image. The Seneca chief Cornplanter held land along the Allegheny, and in the 1960s the building of the Kinzua Dam, upstream of Warren, flooded much of the Seneca's Allegany reservation, a loss that remains a painful memory. The reservoir behind the dam, the Allegheny Reservoir, now forms a long, forested lake with fishing and boating.
The roads that ride out of Warren go through the national forest, a vast stretch of hardwood, black cherry, maple and beech, which turns spectacular in October. Route 59 runs east along the reservoir and through the forest, with gentle curves, long straights and the occasional view of water, and Route 6 and Route 62 cross the area. The roads are lightly traveled, though logging trucks and the occasional oil-field vehicle share them, and the surface can be rough where frost has done its work. Deer, as everywhere in this part of Pennsylvania, are numerous, and collisions are common.
Warren has fuel, supermarkets, diners and a few motels, and it is the main service town for the northern part of the forest. Services thin quickly as you ride toward the reservoir, so stock up. The best time is early to mid-October, when the maples blaze, though late spring has a fresh green. Summer is warm and humid, with a lot of boat and camping traffic. Winter brings deep snow, and the roads are plowed but can be slick. Fog on the river in the early morning is a lovely sight.