cumberland canal path

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rustic garden

We are hiking in the New Jersey Highlands

A short drive to go there from where we live

Saturday morning on the holiday weekend

The start of summer brings out the nature lovers.

Two young women ask us for trail information

Telling us they live near Exit 8 as if we should know

That geography based on the Garden State Parkway

Locations where the names of towns get lost.

A smiling young couple happy to be starting out

Tell us their plan is to wander about

Following whatever trails whichever way they go

Enjoying the day being together.

A frowning older woman returning disappointed

Tells us she prefers the Delaware Water Gap

After viewing the Highlands Natural Pool

Though it seems she didn’t even find the trailhead.

Nothing is pristine in the Anthropocene

Second and third growth trees in the state forest

A limited parcel bounded by roads and development

And yet the trail takes us to a wondrous place.

We climb up and over the ancient Appalachian bedrock

Gaining expansive views from massive granite outcroppings

Giant erratic boulders left by the receding glaciers

Bear witness to a time before we humans were here.

A prairie warbler sings so sweetly from the treetop

A scarlet tanager is heard and then glimpsed

The sunlight filters down through the leaves casting moving shadows

While we walk along delighted listening and looking all around us.

If you are looking to experience wilderness anywhere on this earth

No such place exists not impacted by human activity

But there are places that are being conserved as parkland

Where the pleasures of vegetation and wildlife can be enjoyed.

Here we walk on trails maintained by dedicated volunteers

In what amounts to a kind of rustic garden

The future of this habitat requires overall land management

Keeping alive what can survive in this new epoch.

Jersey Highlands hike: Hewitt-Butler, Macopin, Otter Hole trails

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Montclair: Presby Iris and Van Vleck Gardens

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