Massanutten Mountain is an unusual, totally isolated mountain within the Shenandoah Valley that extends for fifty miles and begins and ends abruptly, with its north end visible from here. Called simply "The Massanutten," it is today part of George Washington National Forest, though the origin of the name "Massanutten" is unclear. Near the mountain's end, Signal Knob is its high point, and during the Civil War Confederate soldiers used Signal Knob as an observation and signal post, relaying message signals to stations farther south and on to Richmond, while the Union Army may also have used it briefly. Massanutten rises as it does because exposed rock layers erode, with harder layers resisting erosion and remaining as ridges while softer layers erode into valleys; long, parallel lines of resistant Massanutten Sandstone form its ridges, and to the north and south the sandstone dips below the surface and the mountain ends.
