I haven't posted in a week! For that I apologize, but I am happy to tell you that I have a new system for blogging. This weekend, we went on two hikes (both at Wildcat Ridge) and in the middle of the hikes and at the end, I wrote notes in my phone. Of course, since I remembered every detail, the notes are incredibly long, but this should make for less racking of my old brains to remember everything!
Since we went to Wildcat Ridge both days, but each hike deserves its own post, I'll start with the first day since going in order makes sense. Tomorrow I'll write about the following day, the 6th! Ready? Let's go!
WILDCAT RIDGE: September 5, 2015 (Labor Day weekend)
That day we had to cross three plans off the list before we could finally find a place to hike. Plan A was Pyramid Mountain: the area was closed for a fair. Plan B was Silas Condict County Park: the area was closed for who-knows-what. Plan C was Farny State Park (we planned to walk partway around the reservoir): lot was completely full. Plan D was Wildcat and we ended up being in the only car in the parking lot at a staggeringly late 4:15 pm! Where was everyone? On Labor Day weekend? Works for us!
For our 10th anniversary, Jon and I exchanged camping- and hiking-related gifts. I purchased him a multi-tool and a camping hammock and he got me a kerchief and a hydration pack. The reason this hydration pack was so special was because it eliminated my chief hydration pack complaint: it squirted water. My issue with my previous hydration pack's hose was that you had to bite and suck and taking a big drink made me feel out of breath. Here I could squirt the water easily into my mouth, squirt water onto my shirt, onto Liam's back... the possibilities are endless! Not only was it a great gift for me, but Liam continuously, throughout the hike, asked me to squirt him. He wore sunglasses so that the water didn't go into his eyes. Smart thinking! We had a blast - quite literally - with it.
After a quick pee behind the car (hey, when a girl has to go, she has to go!), we started on the orange trail. The orange trail parallels the gravel road that climbs up to Hawk Watch, a gorgeous scenic vista with an almost unspoiled view. Hawks fly through the valley during their migration periods and bird watchers pick a seat on the bench (that has been chained to a tree in case someone wanted to lug the bench down the mountain) to watch the majestic birds of prey. We just go up there to enjoy the view: we hadn't yet seen a single hawk. I'm not even quite sure when their migration periods are. But the view is lovely and I imagine it being best in the fall.
And so we started on the orange trail. After a short while, I remembered that I had left my ankle brace in the car so Jon went back for it. I clutched the bear spray to my bosom, challenging any nearby bears to come closer (they didn't). Liam held out acorns, coaxing squirrels to come to his hands (they, too, didn't). I asked Liam what trails we'd take that day and he remembered the exact order after only being told once a few minutes prior.
"Orange... then white... then red... then yellow," he said clearly.
Liam is gifted when it comes to direction. I am relatively okay when it comes to figuring out my way around, but Jon is hopeless. I affectionately call him "Wrong Way Kropa" and for a reason. But Liam only has to take a series of trails ONCE or hear about a progression of trails ONCE and he will forever remember them - in order. One time I offhandedly commented that off WAY in the distance, the orange at Pyramid Mountain brought you to Whale Rock and he remembered that months later. He's gifted with a memory like a computer and a sense of direction like a GPS. In fact he told me while we were standing there at Wildcat that he has a GPS in his brain. I can believe it!
Once Jon got back to the trail, we started on our way. I soon came to find that I was hopelessly out of breath. I'd stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and continue on, but within a minute or two, I was panting again. I blame it partly on not having hiked for a week prior to Saturday and partly on the poor air quality we've had lately. In any event, I struggled my way up the mountain. To make matters worse, the orange trail doesn't simply take you straight up to Hawk Watch. Oh, no, it meanders, it dips into low valleys, then urges you up with steep climbs. "Who put this uphill here?" is a common phrase for us to use on our hikes and I'm positive we uttered it two or three times on the orange trail. This was the rockiest trail I had taken since my injury.
But as we stopped every so often, I got to spray myself and Liam with my nifty new hose! What fun!
Finally we made it up to the "Hawk Watch" trail sign and stumbled our way over to the scenic view. And it was as lovely as ever! In fact maybe moreso because of the yellowing of the tree leaves. It's probably due to how dry the season has been, but I liked to think of it as a peek of fall - at 86 degrees, not likely. We sat down on the bench, sweat pouring off of our faces. We peeked out at the view and noticed a piece of graffiti towards the edge.
After getting a couple of photos of Jon and Liam by the edge, I sat down to put on my ankle brace. I was getting painful twinges in my ankle where my injury was. Liam played in the dusty dirt and found a dried-up earthworm.
"Maybe I can put water on him and he will be alive!" Liam said hopefully. We saw a bird swooping overhead and we quickly came to the realization that we had seen our very first hawk at Hawk Watch! The experience was over as quickly as it begun and it flew out of view.
Liam suddenly stood up and dropped trow, facing the valley in all his glory, completely exposed to the world.
"OH!" Jon yelled "Over to the side!" And Liam stumbled over to the tree cover with his shorts around his ankles, nearly tripping and falling onto his face. Luckily there was no one around - yet. Liam peed by a tree and fumbled to pull his shorts up. Within a couple of minutes, two mountain bikers came ZOOMING in, the teenage biker yelling a string of curse words. Liam had pulled his pants up just in the nick of time!
The teenage mountain biker about fell over, exclaiming how rough the terrain was. The older man (I presumed it was his father) said how this was nothing compared to some trails, but nonetheless he seemed patient with his son: more encouraging than dismissive.
I struck up a conversation with the father and he told me that someone once had told him that baby birds up there had eaten out of their hand. So the father tried it and, sure enough, the baby birds ate of his hand! Now I don't know if he was putting me on, but what's the harm in bringing a little birdseed up to Hawk Watch next time and conducting a little experiment? Sure, why not? Next time!
After enjoying the view a little more, we headed away from the vista and onto the white trail. This part of the hike we had never done before - and so close to sunset! I must admit that one of my worst fears is getting caught out in the woods after dark. Liam and I don't have the best sense of balance and the places we hike are covered in rocks and roots. Plus - and I am always aware of this while hiking - coyotes and bears roam North Jersey forests. Backing up away from a bear up a mountain in the dark sounds like a nightmare to me. So for most of the remainder of the hike, I was keenly aware of the time.
We soon crossed the gravel road and headed into a section of Wildcat that we had never set foot in before. The woods became deeper, rockier, and more isolated. We started going downhill and the thought occurred to me that had we decided to go back to the gravel road and cut our hike short, we would have had to go up quite a steep ascent - which, after climbing the orange trail to Hawk Watch, was something I didn't care to do. So that realization propelled me forward at a decent pace.
My blood sugar was in the toilet so we stopped to eat. I chewed on a Poptart, concerned more with the time than how it tasted. The sun was still relatively high in the sky, but nightfall happens quickly and unexpectedly in the woods. We continued on - uphill, but nothing terrible. We then met with the red trail. After being on the red trail for a few dozen meters, I nearly led us off-trail to a steep drop off. Liam instantly realized my mistake thanks to his internal GPS and we backtracked until we found the trail. We noticed the occasional emergency locator signs with numbers imprinted on them. Should you need to call 911 for an emergency, you could give them your exact coordinates on the trail. I didn't feel quite so isolated after seeing a few of those.
Finally we made it to Beaver Pond - which the Beaver Pond Loop is named for. It was a swampy pond, with a low water level from the dryness of this summer. Several large beaver dams were scattered throughout. The trail continued to the left through some tall grass. Liam isn't a fan of walking through grass that is as tall as he is (can you blame him?) so Jon carried him over it like a 47 pound sack of potatoes.
At this point, I clearly could see that Liam was wobbly. He admitted that he had ataxia and asked for a ride on Jon's shoulders. Since we were on flatter terrain and close to the end, Jon was happy to oblige. A woman appeared from the woods - the first person we had seen on this side of the Beaver Pond Loop - carrying what looked like a bunch spinach in her hands. Surely not spinach in the middle of the woods? We said hello as she passed us. Within two minutes of taking his ease on Jon's shoulders, Liam said, "I want to walk on my own!" And so he did for the remainder of the hike.
As we left the woods for the civilized feel of the road, we saw several ruins, including one that must have been a very large structure indeed. We later learned that this area, like its neighbor Farny State Park, was once a mining community so these may have been buildings related to the early mining industry. The urban explorer in me wished that we could have scrambled all over the ruins of the large structure, but it was encased by brush, not easily accessible.
Our last trail would be the yellow trail, meandering through a short stretch of terrain that appeared to an enchanted forest. Through it was a lovely section, we were fatigued and happy to be back to the car within minutes. When we came to the parking lot, there were about a dozen cars! Right before sunset too! I considered that perhaps they were climbing up to Hawk Watch to see the sunset, but Hawk Watch faces the wrong way. I'm not quite sure why there was nobody at 4:15, but multitudes at almost 7. Apparently not everyone shares my fear of being in the woods after dark.
And thus concludes Saturday's hike at Wildcat Ridge. Stay tuned for Sunday's hike - also at Wildcat Ridge - where we came across a 19th - 20th century graveyard in the middle of the woods and a bat cave!
"Orange... then white... then red... then yellow," he said clearly.
Liam is gifted when it comes to direction. I am relatively okay when it comes to figuring out my way around, but Jon is hopeless. I affectionately call him "Wrong Way Kropa" and for a reason. But Liam only has to take a series of trails ONCE or hear about a progression of trails ONCE and he will forever remember them - in order. One time I offhandedly commented that off WAY in the distance, the orange at Pyramid Mountain brought you to Whale Rock and he remembered that months later. He's gifted with a memory like a computer and a sense of direction like a GPS. In fact he told me while we were standing there at Wildcat that he has a GPS in his brain. I can believe it!
Once Jon got back to the trail, we started on our way. I soon came to find that I was hopelessly out of breath. I'd stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and continue on, but within a minute or two, I was panting again. I blame it partly on not having hiked for a week prior to Saturday and partly on the poor air quality we've had lately. In any event, I struggled my way up the mountain. To make matters worse, the orange trail doesn't simply take you straight up to Hawk Watch. Oh, no, it meanders, it dips into low valleys, then urges you up with steep climbs. "Who put this uphill here?" is a common phrase for us to use on our hikes and I'm positive we uttered it two or three times on the orange trail. This was the rockiest trail I had taken since my injury.
But as we stopped every so often, I got to spray myself and Liam with my nifty new hose! What fun!
Liam suddenly stood up and dropped trow, facing the valley in all his glory, completely exposed to the world.
"OH!" Jon yelled "Over to the side!" And Liam stumbled over to the tree cover with his shorts around his ankles, nearly tripping and falling onto his face. Luckily there was no one around - yet. Liam peed by a tree and fumbled to pull his shorts up. Within a couple of minutes, two mountain bikers came ZOOMING in, the teenage biker yelling a string of curse words. Liam had pulled his pants up just in the nick of time!
The teenage mountain biker about fell over, exclaiming how rough the terrain was. The older man (I presumed it was his father) said how this was nothing compared to some trails, but nonetheless he seemed patient with his son: more encouraging than dismissive.
I struck up a conversation with the father and he told me that someone once had told him that baby birds up there had eaten out of their hand. So the father tried it and, sure enough, the baby birds ate of his hand! Now I don't know if he was putting me on, but what's the harm in bringing a little birdseed up to Hawk Watch next time and conducting a little experiment? Sure, why not? Next time!
After enjoying the view a little more, we headed away from the vista and onto the white trail. This part of the hike we had never done before - and so close to sunset! I must admit that one of my worst fears is getting caught out in the woods after dark. Liam and I don't have the best sense of balance and the places we hike are covered in rocks and roots. Plus - and I am always aware of this while hiking - coyotes and bears roam North Jersey forests. Backing up away from a bear up a mountain in the dark sounds like a nightmare to me. So for most of the remainder of the hike, I was keenly aware of the time.
We soon crossed the gravel road and headed into a section of Wildcat that we had never set foot in before. The woods became deeper, rockier, and more isolated. We started going downhill and the thought occurred to me that had we decided to go back to the gravel road and cut our hike short, we would have had to go up quite a steep ascent - which, after climbing the orange trail to Hawk Watch, was something I didn't care to do. So that realization propelled me forward at a decent pace.
My blood sugar was in the toilet so we stopped to eat. I chewed on a Poptart, concerned more with the time than how it tasted. The sun was still relatively high in the sky, but nightfall happens quickly and unexpectedly in the woods. We continued on - uphill, but nothing terrible. We then met with the red trail. After being on the red trail for a few dozen meters, I nearly led us off-trail to a steep drop off. Liam instantly realized my mistake thanks to his internal GPS and we backtracked until we found the trail. We noticed the occasional emergency locator signs with numbers imprinted on them. Should you need to call 911 for an emergency, you could give them your exact coordinates on the trail. I didn't feel quite so isolated after seeing a few of those.
Finally we made it to Beaver Pond - which the Beaver Pond Loop is named for. It was a swampy pond, with a low water level from the dryness of this summer. Several large beaver dams were scattered throughout. The trail continued to the left through some tall grass. Liam isn't a fan of walking through grass that is as tall as he is (can you blame him?) so Jon carried him over it like a 47 pound sack of potatoes.
At this point, I clearly could see that Liam was wobbly. He admitted that he had ataxia and asked for a ride on Jon's shoulders. Since we were on flatter terrain and close to the end, Jon was happy to oblige. A woman appeared from the woods - the first person we had seen on this side of the Beaver Pond Loop - carrying what looked like a bunch spinach in her hands. Surely not spinach in the middle of the woods? We said hello as she passed us. Within two minutes of taking his ease on Jon's shoulders, Liam said, "I want to walk on my own!" And so he did for the remainder of the hike.
As we left the woods for the civilized feel of the road, we saw several ruins, including one that must have been a very large structure indeed. We later learned that this area, like its neighbor Farny State Park, was once a mining community so these may have been buildings related to the early mining industry. The urban explorer in me wished that we could have scrambled all over the ruins of the large structure, but it was encased by brush, not easily accessible.
Our last trail would be the yellow trail, meandering through a short stretch of terrain that appeared to an enchanted forest. Through it was a lovely section, we were fatigued and happy to be back to the car within minutes. When we came to the parking lot, there were about a dozen cars! Right before sunset too! I considered that perhaps they were climbing up to Hawk Watch to see the sunset, but Hawk Watch faces the wrong way. I'm not quite sure why there was nobody at 4:15, but multitudes at almost 7. Apparently not everyone shares my fear of being in the woods after dark.
And thus concludes Saturday's hike at Wildcat Ridge. Stay tuned for Sunday's hike - also at Wildcat Ridge - where we came across a 19th - 20th century graveyard in the middle of the woods and a bat cave!
Great blog, I enjoyed reading it!
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