NJ Sandy Hook NRA

 #45 4022 52-Hike Challenge: Sandy Hook National Park/National Recreation Area / 8 mi. 

A long drive to the Jersey Shore led us to the furthest northern point of the Mid-Atlantic Coast. Defined largely as a chain of barrier islands, the longest chain in the world, from Sandy Hook, NJ, to southern most islands of the Outer Banks, NC, I have long wanted to explore the extent of Mid-Atlantic shore from tip to tip as a walking project to inspire some writing. But (and there's always a but...), I cannot tolerate the shore in summer months so I've made this a winter project. No biting insects, fewer human crowds, and a more intimate experience with the coastal environment. 

MUP southern terminus with a NYC skyline view

This being Amos' first time to the ocean, he wasn't very impressed with the surf but loved the sand. We largely kept to the Multi-Use Path (MUP) and walked straight up the long skinny island to its terminus at the Fort Hancock artillery base (also a part of the NRA) and looped back on the MUP with some sandy inner dune trails added for an 8-mile circuit hike. With the wind and cold there were no bicyclists on the paved trail and very few walkers anywhere. We basically had the place to ourselves! Yay, winter! 

We started our trek from South Beach (C Lot) and walked through an extensive maritime forest dense with mature American Holly trees, some of  them quite old, but it was so cold that I didn't stop to measure. We passed an old decommissioned Cold War missile site and looked at some real Nike missiles on display.  The barrier islands have always served as a defense against both storms and human-made threats. They guard New York Harbor, the mouth of the Delaware, and the Chesapeake. Barrier islands rim the entrances to the great Eastern coastal rivers and protect the mainlands and marshes further inshore. From New Jersey to Virginia they contain military bases, Coast Guard stations and life saving posts, all with their relic coastal defenses from past wars. 

Battery Potter

The MUP heading north joined the park road system on the Hancock base and we passed all manner of coastal defense structures. This area still shows signs of Superstorm Sandy (2012) and in some places flood debris still littered dark recesses and abandoned spaces. The entire multi-site Gateway National Park was closed for over 6 months as over 1000 NPS and emergency contractors worked day and night to reclaim the ravaged islands. Historic buildings took on major damage, but nothing like what was experienced in nearby coastal towns north and south of here. It was a sobering bit of ground to cover. 

Mortar Battery

We explored an interior pit of the large mortar battery and found high water marks from the 2012 storm. We wandered around the old proving grounds and played hide and seek around the concrete blast walls where salt water had scoured foundations. Hurricane Sandy pushed a record fifteen feet of water over the peninsula. The storm surge took out entire dune systems and buried roads under six feet of sand.  But the island survived and over the years has been restored with the help of 1,700 volunteers who helped rebuild and replant dunes with native grasses, rebuilt trail systems, and removed over 80 tons of debris from the maritime forests. 

Sandy Hook Lighthouse

We explored as far as we could go towards the New York Harbor and watched huge tanker and container ships plow their way into a strong northerly headwind. Coming back through the military base we stopped at the Sandy Hook Lighthouse, the oldest continuously operating light in the nation (since 1764) and talked to two very nice rangers there. While the light keepers house did suffer damage, they told me, the light itself never failed and stood resolutely through the entire storm.  Hearing first hand witness stories made me appreciate even more the resiliency of barrier islands. 

Officer's Club

Storm debris 

Watching the harsh cold wind whip across parking lots and roads it was amazing to see how blowing sands quickly piled up against my boots when I stood too long. Drifts of sand swept off curbs into streets and around the corners of buildings. In a constantly shifting landscape, even the sandy trails on the way back to the truck seemed ready to change the entire direction of the path under my feet. 

Sandy Hook Fire and EMS (!) 

Osprey nest on a storm damaged home

Officers housing

Multi-Use Trail (MUT) heading south

We said goodbye to our new ranger friends and began our trek south on the MUP but now spending much time admiring (and braving) the rough Sandy Hook Bay. Beyond the bay towards the mainland rose the Highlands, a bold rise of headlands.  We walked past the remains of old hooks now miles from the terminus of the island today, where small woodlands grow and sand spits connect sheltered coves and marshes to the back dunes. One prominent spit holds the remains of Battery Arrowsmith and of course we had to check that out, too. 

Sandy Hook Bay BBRRR!

Sand path in the back dune

Battery Arrowsmith on Sandy Hook Bay

Sandspit connecting an old hook to the backdunes through mudflats

It was almost sunset as we crossed the main road from a sand trail to where the truck (and its promise of snacks and water) was parked. I took Amos one more time out to the ocean beach where a young family asked permission to come meet him. He loved the attention but did not like getting his toes wet when a surge of foamy water invaded their play. Nope, ocean!

As we walked back to the treat wagon (truck) through the renovated main dunes, I could see the buried tops of trees that once stood in this area as maritime forest. Replanted sea oats and grasses anchored the main dune and we struggled to climb over a large mound of sand piled at the entrance to the access path to keep winter washouts from occurring. I really wanted to check out the Lifesaving Station but Amos p-u-l-l-e-d me back to the truck so he could put up his sandy feet and dive into his bag of jerky treats. Guess I'll have to do that another time!

A young family comes to visit Amos

Notes:

Sandy Hook in one unit of the large Gateway National Recreation Area complex that includes former military installations, wild marshes, and barrier islands, all of which served to protect New York Harbor from natural and wartime threats. 

Trail Map for Sandy Hook. https://www.nps.gov/gate/planyourvisit/upload/MUP_Wayside-Map_rev5July2017.pdf

PA Shiprock Nature Preserve

 #44   2022 52-Hike Challenge: Shiprock Nature Preserve: 1 mile

This ridiculously short hike (to me) of one mile turned into two hours of mucking around one of Lancaster Conservancy's smallest preserves. It was part work/ part hike as circled the preserve to look for landmarks and interesting sights that are visible year-round to hikers, primarily children. It's part of a project to explore each of the Conservancy's preserves where a mile to three mile hiking loop can be made to introduce families to the "Art of Seeing," a method of nature exploration developed by American naturalist John Burroughs.  

Small parking area on Shiprock Road

Burroughs taught us that to see - to really see - was naturalist's best tool for understanding the natural world around them. He also lamented that very few people could actually utilize the potential of seeing the natural world, that to an untrained eye the world is all of a single color and the landscape of a single dimension. For his entire career and long life as an author and teacher, he concentrated on teaching people - particularly children - how to really observe, "How to See." 

The storied shiprocks

Leaving the parking area heading uphill, my lungs were tested right away with a steep climb. On the rolling blue blazed trail, "Why do you think this area is called Shiprock?" I asked my stand-in 5 year old, Amos the Coonhound. I didn't expect an answer until we came upon the bow and stern shaped outcrops of blue-gray quartzite. In the language of all hounds, his sniffing all around the low ledges resulted in finding some burrows of some small rodents and a thorough investigation around the prows of three, maybe four "ships."  

Gouged ravine

This is a good place to look at erosional ravines. The slope is significant and run-off from unprotected agricultural fields (read: no cover crops) north of the preserve causes rapid drainage and downcutting through soft sediments that fill the valley. These landforms are not ancient artifacts of geologic processes but modern failures of humans to protect vulnerable soils.  Anytime you find a deep V-shaped valley like this, it signals problems. As we step-slipped down the steep trail into and out of the V, I asked my 5 year old "What could have caused this and why isn't there a stream down here?" Amos looked at me like I was nuts and helped pull me out of the pit.

Heavy erosion damage in the V

So far I had two excellent features to look for and was thinking about how to turn the questions into a diagramming lesson when all of a sudden Amos hollered. He hollered and hollered and hollered, but I have no idea at what. It was cool though to hear his voice echo off the steep valley sides. This startled him and he stopped. Thank goodness, because my ears were ringing. 

A sentinel White Oak

No one's ever asked about why I keep a black piece of electrical tape wrapped around Amos' 9' leash measured at 3' from the handle. Well now they know. We approached a huge White Oak, surely one of the oldest trees in the preserve, and we measured the circumference around with the leash. Amos has done this so many times that when I say "Let's measure" he immediately starts to walk around whatever it is. I know he can't do math and he has no fingers to use the calculator on my phone, so I helped him. We measured the tree at about four and a half feet from the ground to be 15 feet around or 180 inches. 

Divide 180 by 3.1416 (this is where I had to help) and we calculated the tree's diameter at 57 inches  across. I consulted my tree growth factor chart that I keep taped inside my little notebook for White Oak and multiplied 57 by 5 to estimate the tree's age at 286 years. This is a conservative estimate, however, so figure this specimen may well be 300+ years old, since it is growing in a very fertile spot with good sun and rich soil. 

My hiking pole is set at 4.5 feet high for circumference measurement.

Just for fun we measured a few of the huge Tulip Poplar trees on the same rich soil ridge and found that they spanned between 75 and 125 years old (with a growth factor for their species of 3). The White Oak certainly was the oldest on the ridge if not in the entire preserve. Happy with his measurements, Amos pulled me down the hill and back across the V-shaped ravine. 

Cabin chimney

I decided not to make up a question about the very obvious cabin chimney. Too easy. So we continued on and started to climb out of the valley at almost a mile. We spotted a Beech that was showing signs of great stress as it was growing clusters of short stems, an emergency measure for a tree that has been destabilized or damaged. "What is causing this tree stress?" I asked my five year old as I studied the stems and the tree's surroundings. There were two large dead standing trunks that were leaning into the Beech, causing it to almost uproot. I thought Amos might catch that but, no. I think his attention span had played out by now and he knew we were headed back to the truck where the snacks were waiting.

 

Stress!

We cannot all find the same things in Nature. 

She is all things to all men...In her are "all manners of tastes," science, art, poetry, utility, and good in all. The botanist has one pleasure in her, the ornithologist another, the explorer another, the walker another, and the sportsman another.; what all may have is the refreshment and exhilaration which come from a loving and intelligent scrutiny of her manifold works. 

- John Burroughs, Riverby (1904)

Notes

The Intown Hawk has a good set of growth rates charts that are averaged between street tree rates and wild tree growth rates. https://intownhawk.com/estimate-tree-age/

Shiprock Preserve is a small preserve under 40 acres and a good choice for hiking with little ones. https://www.lancasterconservancy.org/preserves/shiprock-woods/

PA Tyler Arboretum: Beyond the Perimeter Fence

 #43 2022 52-Hike Challenge: Tyler Arboretum Hiking Trails, 5.5 miles

The Arboretum charges a fee for entrance and I was happy to hand over my $15 on this dreary day. Happy that there was no one else on the grounds and no one else except for staff and volunteers. Happy that I had the place to myself. Happy that I could take my time to study the winter forms and bones of the formal gardens (even in the drizzly rain). But oddly, what made me most happy was that I had paid to walk through the perimeter fence. Tyler Arboretum owns over 700 acres of Delaware County forest land and over 20 miles of hiking trails beyond the deer fence. I'd heard there were some surprises out there.

Winterberry, Ilex verticillata

The pay window staffer handed me a hiking trail map. She pointed out some places to hike to and said "Don't miss this....don't miss that." Soon I was through the formal gardens and out through the perimeter fence (there are many of them) and on to the wilder side of the arboretum. I had to use both the paper map and my phone app to keep me on the right trail. There are so many paths it is easy to get turned around. I picked up my first two deflated mylar balloons and ribbon strings within the first 30 minutes and added three more before closing time.  

Pink Trail loop 

Most of the trails loop back on themselves or into other trails so I did a lot of circling around. There were a lot of deer and coming down the hill towards a road crossing I scared up a small herd who bounded across the street. Luckily no cars or trucks were coming. Yikes. I crossed over as well and began looping around watershed of Dismal Run. More deer and then the magnificent arch of the South Farm Stone Barn ruin where I stood on the tumble of rubble that had once been its high walls. In 1861 English Quaker Thomas Minshall bought this land directly from Quaker William Penn who bought land directly from the Lenni Lenape people. 

South Farm Barn ruins

William Penn was one of the very few who conducted honest land purchases from the local native people in the the 1600s to establish his colony. Unfortunately, his sons were not so honest (and not so Quaker) regarding dealings with the Lenapi and in a "series of land theft, swindles, and violent, oftentimes murderous actions" removed Lenape from their Lenapehoking homelands.  Eight generations of Minshall Quakers farmed this land, however, and to it they added magnificently built stone barns, homes, spring houses, and cottages, the ruins of which litter these woods today. Quaker communities flourished in the area and many Lenapi people stayed on the land. The Painter family, also English Quakers, married into the Minshall family and the combined properties and farms would later become the Tyler Arboretum. The land I hiked all over was once Lenapi forest lands, then cleared for farming for hundreds of years, and is now back again to forest. (See Notes on Leanpe homecoming)

Pink Hill Serpentine Barrens

The trail crossed over Dismal Run which was not very dismal. It was fat and happy with full day and night's rain, burbling over logs and frothing against the banks. Soon I was at the gate of another perimeter fence and discovered an unexpected treat - the Pink Hill Serpentine Barrens. The wet and weathered serpentine rock gave the trail and all the exposed soils in the grasslands a bright green hue, contrasted against the red brown fallen leaves of Red Oak and Post Oak. This is the only surviving - and thankfully protected - patch of serpentine barrens in Delaware County, just a postage stamp, really, of three acres. Development has consumed the county's eleven serpentine ecosystems. Pink Hills is all that remains.

Wet serpentine glows green!

Post Oak 

The Dismal Run Loop was divinely not dismal, just sayin'. But soon I was looping around again, this time on the Red, White, and Blue Trails. With the water high I was unable to cross Rocky Run so I just switched to the Blue Trail at the intersection and looped again.

The trails widened into old roads and my pace quickened downhill and uphill.  A few slips and slides on wet leaves and a near tumble over who-knows-what-that-was had me putting on the brakes with my hiking pole. More deer. 

I decided to stop and ponder an almost hidden petroglyph that the staffer at the entrance window assured me was there with a "don't miss this." She was amazed at how many people do miss it since it requires a little searching along a rocky boulder field on a creek gradient off trail and is often leaf covered. A volunteer explained that it wasn't until 1906 that it was unearthed and recorded and that maybe it had even been relocated from deeper in the rock field to its present location above and out of the tumbling waters.

"Indian Rock" is located on the trail map

Wheels and crosses, he said, are not uncommon in ancient Lenapi rock art in the Northeast, but no one truly knows their meaning, though the arms of the cross seem to line up with the cardinal directions. The more I studied the rock at the site, however, the less like a cross it looked as two of the arms had extensions that fanned out in other directions. Maybe it was only part of a larger design that broke away at some point? In any case, the petroglyph showed the classic peck markings of stone-on-stone carving and it was very old. 

Dismal Run 

Speckled Greenshield lichen

My final loop brought me back to a perimeter gate and I slipped back inside the formal gardens just as a cold wind began to blow and tiny slivers of blue sky clouded over again. The drizzle returned and I stopped to pull my rain jacket back out of my pack after a mostly dry hike of two hours. I decided to have a snack in a pretty replica of Thoreau's cabin and listened to gentle rain patter on the cedar shake roof.  Though the original cabin no longer exists  (it was dismantled after 1847 and its parts repurposed by locals) Thoreau left notes on how he built it and today there are replicas of it all over the country. There is one on the campus of Penn State Altoona that is very nice and I've done a nature journal class there. I've even thought about constructing my own Henry House as a writing studio. 

Out of a cold wind and drizzle

Notes: 

"Lenape People seek a return home." https://whyy.org/articles/we-just-want-to-be-welcomed-back-the-lenape-seek-a-return-home/

Dr.Laura Guertin's Tyler Arboretum sabbatical project blogpost on the Pink Hill Barrens. https://journeysofdrgattyler.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/the-pink-hill-serpentine-barren-of-tyler-arboretum-a-rare-gem/

Trail Map for inside and beyond the deer fence - lots of loops! https://tylerarboretum.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Tyler-Arboretum-Trail-Map-May-2017.pdf

Tyler Arboretum - Delaware County, PA. https://tylerarboretum.org/

PA Colonel Denning State Park: Flat Rock Trail

 #42 2022 52-Hike Challenge: Flat Rock Trail  - 5.5 mi.

The Valley and Ridge geological province of Pennsylvania is a feast for the eyes. From an overlook like Flat Rock, the mountains roll away like waves on a vast sea with wind and water gaps breaking the long rolling ridges. When we finally arrived at the summit, the Cumberland Valley sprawled out around us but we didn't stay long. The hike had been rugged and sweaty and in the cold wind I began to get chilled. 

The Cumberland Valley 

A hiking friend of mine says she learned the hard way to not take long breaks at the top of a mountain in winter where most people would think the view point would offer a nice place to enjoy lunch or a restful stop. Instead take long breaks in the valleys where you are more sheltered from the wind and not as sweaty from the climb. So as we moved off the summit after just a few minutes, I knew just where to take that nice warm break complete with sausages for Amos. 

Tuscarora Conglomerate Sandstone, marine fossils

The trail begins at Colonel Denning State Park and traverses the slopes and angles of the "canoe stern" of the Kittatinny Mountain, Endless Mountain, or Blue Mountain - different names for the same long mountain that runs diagonally across the state. I parked at the far end of the park, not in the designated Flat Rock parking area. It added another mile to the trip. Steady up and across slopes and angles of Tuscarora sandstone required patience and not a few stops to catch my breath. I studied the marine fossils and green things living among jumbles of boulders while trying not to gulp air. Signs of a great reef, burrowing invertebrates, corals, and shells stood out in the low shadow a winter's afternoon.

Smooth Rock Tripe, Umbilicaria mammulata

Trailing Arbutus, Epigaea repens

A jumbled trail

At the top of the first ridge (the canoe's port side) the Wagon Wheel of Trails intersection was an unexpected surprise. I spun around in every direction to read the different trail signs leading hikers this way or that.  The Tuscarora Trail joined the Flat Rock Trail here. I made note of the nearby backpacker shelter where we would take our snack break on the way back. We followed the yellow and blue blazes down into a high swamp and rock-hopped across boulder paths and a few boardwalks. Then up the starboard side of the canoe and the summit of the ridge where a short, well used path lead to the overlook.

As we trekked over the wetlands at 1400', I thought about the complex folding and warping these mountains have been subjected to. Anticlines and synclines, airborne marine reefs, and the great arc of the Alleghenian Orogeny mountain-building event make this a geologists playground and for us rock hounds, especially folks like me who like to find fossils, it's a smorgasbord. I don't collect, however, and take my fossil samples home by way of pictures instead.

High country swampland

Almost to the summit!

Very battered USGS marker at 1,670 feet.

The hike up took about two hours, moving slowly. Up and over the summit we went and out to the flat rock that is Flat Rock and wowza! Besides the view of the valley, the low afternoon sun was highlighting in shadow the many marine features including very worn fossils, current marks, and flow channels. This rock holds the memory of water. 

Amos let out a big loud holler - I think they heard him in Carlisle!

Escarpment

From the valley below looking up at Blue Mountain, the ridge appears to be a solid wall of rock that runs as far as the eye can see SW to NE. This is the famous escarpment that contains many hawk watch sites, including Hawk Mountain and Wagoner's Gap, and as the hawk/eagle/falcon/osprey migration is just ending for the year, the sky seemed empty and vast. I waited as long as I could in hopes of seeing a straggler, a late migrant Golden Eagle or Peregrine. Nothing came. But I did see a Red Shouldered Hawk far below, pinwheeling over the purple-hued forest below.  I started to shiver. Amos shuddered. Time to get to that shelter for snack.

Lunch stop on the Tuscarora Trail

We stopped at the backpacker shelter and sat out of the wind in full sun to munch on a P&J sandwich (me) and little sausages (Amos). My hiking companion sprawled out on the warm planks and I was tempted to lie back as well, but with the sun getting lower quickly, it was time to head down the trail for the park. Thanks to the PATC for the upkeep of this beautiful shelter. Maybe I'll get to sleep in it one day. 

A rocky trail indeed!

Stone work on the trail

Carefully threading our way down the rocky path I took the time to admire the stone work that trail maintainers and builders have placed along the way, each feature - whether a stone wall, water bar, boulder path or stairs - laid with care. Shout out again to the PATC for all of the excellent work and to the trail stewards of the DCNR/State Parks. 

Last look back

Finally we reached flat ground and walked through the park to the truck. Amos let out another holler when he saw it.  It was the only vehicle left in the park besides a late season tent camper who introduced himself as we cut through the campground. He was from Montana here to enjoy some Eastern trout fishing. "Man, I have to say, these mountains might not be high but they are tough!" I really wanted to hear more about his fishing in the area but poor Amos wanted the truck so badly all I could say as the dog pulled me away was "Nice to meet you...."

Canoe-shaped Endless/Kittatinny/Blue Mountain traverse

Notes:

Pennsylvania is a geologist's party zone. Too much fun! A good source of information is the Pennsylvania Geology Magazine and is free to browse via PDF. https://elibrary.dcnr.pa.gov/GetDocument?docId=1751958&DocName=Hyperlinks_PaGeoMagazine.pdf

Where you will learn that Colonel William Denning was not really a colonel. https://www.dcnr.pa.gov/StateParks/FindAPark/ColonelDenningStatePark/Pages/History.aspx