Dam Waterfall!

This afternoon I had a nice hike at some park out in Rockaway, New Jersey. This time the hike was instigated by Rebecca, who emailed a bunch of people yesterday to see if anyone was up for hiking today. Fortunately she was cool with doing an afternoon hike, because I had to go to work for a few hours this morning at Crate & Barrel. Russ was unable to make it though, because he's on call this weekend. So it was just Rebecca, Jason and me today.

The above picture of Rebecca and me was taken from the overlook point. I didn't bother to take a picture of the view itself because it would look pretty unimpressive - miles of leafless trees and a washed-out sky. But someone brought a block of bird seed that they put in a nearby tree stump, so we got to see a lot of these little birds up close. One even checked out my back pack while it was laying on a rock, but lil-bird took off before I could snap a picture of him. This lookout is right along a hawk migration path, so I'm told all kinds of people go up there during the spring and fall migration months to help count hawks. Near the lookout, they have a chart posted showing the number of hawks counted during migration season since 1987.

My favorite part of the hike was near the end, when we came across the remants of an old iron processing center that was alongside the river. There's a dam with a lot of water running over it, and these big stone structures with pukas in them that you can stand in to pose for pictures. :) My favorite was the one inscribed with "Death!" and "Die!" in red spray paint.

On the other side of this dam is a nice big reservoir, where it looks like they allow kayak and canoe access. Not that we have kayaks or a canoe, but if we did, we could take them here. :) There's also a trail that loops all the way around the reservoir - the sign says it's 13.8 miles around, but my friend, Jason, thinks it's closer to 20. Either way, it looks like it would be nice to bike around. So looks like we'll have to check this place out some more when the weather gets warm.