Duck Pond, Hawk Rock & Scarlet Oak Pond

It's a lovely weekend so yesterday Kenji and I drove up to Mahwah to do some letterboxing. We found one at the duck pond at Continental Soldiers Park. The name of that box was Duck Pond. Interestingly though we didn't see any ducks there. Instead, we saw and heard a whole flock of noisy Canada geese. We also saw two giant swans, one of which sitting in its nest. I never saw a swan's nest before, so that was pretty cool.

The next two boxes we found were hidden at Ramapo Reservation. The two boxes were called Hawk Rock and Scarlet Oak Pond. Both had been waterlogged, so we were unable to leave impressions of our stamps in their logbooks, but we were able to take away their stamp impressions.

It was such a beautiful day that lots and lots of people were out -- walking their dogs, going fishing, hiking, riding horseback. Oh, and letterboxing. :)

This view is from an outcropping of rocks along the way to the Hawk Rock letterbox:

Little Hike at Eagle Rock

This morning I went for a little hike with Jason and another chick whose name I can't remember. Kenji was going to come hike too, but he had to hang around the house and wait for the Direct TV guy to come over and stick a satellite dish on our garage and put some cables in our house.


This time we hiked at Eagle Rock Reservation in West Orange. I didn't bother to take a picture of the NYC skyline this time because I put that in a different post already. So instead here's a little stone bridge we walked across. I tried to get Tiffknee to go hike with us but she wasn't having any of it. The End.

An Irish Blessing

After finishing the hike with Jason and his friends, I drove a little further into town to find a place to eat. My plan was to go find the letterbox hidden at Ringwood Manor, and I thought perhaps I should grab a bite to eat before hand. So first I went to the little New York town of Tuxedo, where I ate at a busy diner where they had good French toast. Looking out the window of the diner, I learned that gasoline in New York is at least $0.50 more than it is in New Jersey.

Anyway, after lunch I found my way to Ringwood Manor, which is just a few miles back over the border on the Jersey side. I should have read the clues for An Irish Blessing more carefully before I got started. For some reason I was under the impression that this would be a quick find. I didn't even change back into my hiking boots, which would have been nice since was tromping around in the woods wearing my sandals.

The hike was really nice though. The manor grounds are pretty with interesting things to look at, like a reflecting pool and sculptures of creepy looking beasty chicks.

There's a little lake, next to which is a graveyard I guess for the people who used to live in the manor way back in way-back times. For some reason I like graveyards, especially when you can see water from them.

Since it's been so warm so far this fall, there has been very little change in leaf color. So here's one of the few examples of fall foliage I found - the picture doesn't convey the color as well as it looked in person, and I can't quite get it right in Photoshop, but it's pretty close. Oh well.

So the hike and the hunt ended up taking about an hour and a half altogether. I could have done it more quickly but I was having fun poking around the graveyard, and then when I was just about ready to find the letterbox, I had to sit real quiet for several minutes while waiting for other hikers to pass by. Sera and Doobie carved a real pretty stamp, so yeah, other people should go find it. :)

Harriman Hike (Again)

Two springs ago Kenji and I went on a hike just over the line in New York's Harriman State Park with our friend Jason and the group of hikers he organizes on a monthly basis. We hiked the 7 Hills trail. Today I went on another hike with Jason and a couple of his friends, again at Harriman, but this time a different trail.

This time instead of the 7 hills, we hiked near the 7 lakes. Well, I don't know how close to any lakes we were, but we at least had to drive down Seven Lakes Drive to get to the trailhead. I liked this hike a lot because there were lots of cool rock formations along the trail, and those are interesting to look at. And this rock formation was extra cool because it was like a comfy chair. See how comfy I look?

We also found a bunch of cool acorn caps like this one. I don't know what breed of oak trees produces this kind of acorn cap, but I had never seen one of this shape before. Like the regular acorn caps I'm used to seeing, this one made a very good whistle. :)

Black River County Park Hike

Today Kenji and I went on a nice hike in Chester, NJ at Black River County Park. This was a hike organized by my friend Jason. Eight of us met at Cooper Mill, and then we carpooled to the Wildwood Arboretum where we began our hike. The trek back to Cooper Mill was about 7 miles over fairly level terrain, through fields and forest and eventually following alongside the Black River back to the Cooper Mill.

We saw some nifty stuff, like this little blue bird. We also came across several millipedes and a few tent caterpillars.

While we were eating lunch, a lady came by who said she and her boyfriend lost her brother's dog. She gave us some phone numbers to call in case we came across Sadie, and continued with her search. After lunch, we came across her again, and she borrowed one of our cell phones to call her brother and father to see if they could come help her locate the dog. About ten minutes later, we came across Sadie. Unfortunately, Sadie wouldn't allow us to pet her, so we weren't able to capture her. But here she is, sitting a little ways off from us in the woods.

Some other photos from our hike...

This is a bathtub we came across shortly after we left Sadie behind. I don't know what it's doing in the middle of the forest, but it does serve the purpose of bearing a red blaze on it to mark the trail (the blaze is on the inside of the tub and not visible in the photo).

This is the Cooper Mill, as seen from the trail. It was built in 1826, and still has two grinding stones in operation today.

After hiking, we stopped at Alstede Farms for ice cream and to pet goats!

Hedden Park Hike

The weather got really nice a couple Saturdays ago, so Kenji and I went on our first real hike of the season with our friend, Jason, who organizes the NJ Young Hikers MeetUp group. This hike was an easy one around Hedden Park in Dover. I think we hiked somewhere around five or six miles. It was mostly level terrain, so it didnʻt take us very long.

There was a nice waterfall along the way, but I forgot to take my camera out of the car so I didnʻt get a picture of it. Looking at the photos Jason took, it appears he didnʻt take a good picture of it either. But hereʻs a little bit smaller waterfall that he did take a picture of.

And hereʻs the whole gang of us who came out to hike that morning:

Tiny Little Hike

Today... well, I guess by now it's really yesterday, since as I write this it's 23 minutes past midnight, although I never really consider it to be tomorrow until after I've woken up from having gone to sleep for the night... Arrgh!

Anyway, on Saturday afternoon April 14th, Kenji and I went and did a little bit of Letterboxing. If you do not know what Letterboxing is, then please go visit the link I just gave you. In short, Letterboxing is like going on little treasure hunts for rubber stamps that people hide in all sorts of places for other people to find. A more primitive version of Geocaching if you will. Kenji and I have found many letterboxes in several states, including Hawaii, Washington, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and most recently, New Jersey. The letterbox we found today was at Turtle Back Rock. It was a very easy find. The picture on the right is the page in my letterboxing book where I put the stamp (lower right).

Our first clue was to follow the orange and white blaze trail to the right away from the parking lot at Turtle Back Rock Park:


The deer were not part of the clues, but we took a picture of them anyway. It looks like they are molting in preparation of warmer weather, which doesn't seem to be in any hurry to get here this year.


Anyway, after following the white/orange trail for about three tenths of a mile, we spotted the large cut stump referred to in the clue...


And the nearby rock with the number 13 painted on it...


A short ways past the 13 rock, we encountered a place where the trail passed between two large boulders, which we neglected to photograph. Immediately before the boulders, the clue instructed us to take ten steps up the hill to the left, and uncover the letterbox from beneath a pile of small rocks and leaves.

And there we have it. :)

I'm glad the clue also mentioned to look around at the rocks in the area, as they have been carved by Native Americans long ago in such a way as to resemble the markings on a turtle's back. Sadly, we might not have noticed this if I hadn't re-read the clue one last time.


From the thirty seconds of research I did about this, it seems the markings may have been meant to serve as directional guides. Thirty seconds of research really didn't produce many articles on it... only a brief mention in this one page.

So anyway, after we re-hid the letterbox and examined the carvings, we spent a few minutes playing on the rocks and looking down at the cars passing by on Northfield Avenue below. Then we left and went on our merry way. The End.

Paper Plate Park

Yesterday morning Kenji woke up early to go hiking with our friend Jason and bunch of other people at Paper Plate Park, otherwise known as Kitatinny Valley State Park. I call it Paper Plate Park because someone went and put up paper plates with black arrows everywhere along all the trails there. I think whoever did it must have done it yesterday morning before 10:00am, because we had all kinds of rain and wind the night before, and the plates and arrows didn't look soggy at all.

There were twelve of us altogether. We would have taken a group shot of everyone, but Jason forgot to bring his nifty little tripod, and we were too lazy to figure out a different way to set up the camera. So this is the closest thing I could get to a group shot. I was standing on top of a stone wall next to a little boat launch when I took this.


Last autumn we got gyped out of foliage. The trees stayed green all the way into November. When the leaves finally changed color, it lasted for only about a week and then they all fell off and everything was gray. This year the leaves have been changing more gradually, starting about two weeks ago. Some trees have already lost their leaves while some are at their peak of color, and some are still green. So it's nice we get to enjoy the foliage for a lot longer this year.

I liked the lilly pads and leaves in the water:


And here are some more paper plates. Some places on the trail had four or five paper plates with arrows all pointing in the same direction. Whoever put the paper plates up must have really wanted people to go that way, since apparently one paper plate wasn't enough!

Hawaii Visit - Sunday

Sunday we got up BRIGHT AND EARLY (especially for poor hostess Rebecca, who is most assurely NOT a morining person!) for a wonderful and muddy workout, hiking up to the Ko'olau summit by way of the Hawai'iloa Ridge trail.

I've hiked this trail before, about four years ago. The trailhead is at the very top of Puuikena Drive, a very ritzy gated community filled with gigantic, some beautiful, some simply ostentatious, homes. Among the many amenities located by the trailhead is this little workout thingy... I'm not really sure how it's supposed to be used, but jumping seemed like a good idea to me. When the trailchicks and I did the hike back in November 2002, my friend Nancy and I hopped over all the beams together (I'm the one in the silly green hat). This time I couldn't anyone to hop with me. Weenies.

Yes, more feet photos. This was when our shoes were all nice and clean and respectable-looking. Later on, they were just plain muddy. But we didn't take an after-photo, so you'll just have to use your imagination. =)


The weather wasn't the best - actually it was quite nice down by the ocean, but the summit was rainy and socked-in with clouds, as you can see by our little group picture. The sign is proof we made it to the top. :P


Hawai'iloa Ridge has a lot of really steep bits near the summit. Going up it's not so bad, well aside from how tiring it is. While we were at the summit, it began to rain. As we were descending the mountain, it began to rain harder. We saw little streams of muddy water flowing down the trail under our feet. In several places, we had no choice but to descend on all fours, resulting in hands that looked like this:


As we got closer to the trailhead, things did brighten up again. I really liked the shady places, especially this part of the trail, where the tree roots are all exposed and criss-cross everywhere over the forest floor. I'm no good with identifying most trees, otherwise I'd tell you what kind of trees these are...


The hike all the way up and back is probably around 5 miles. We followed up with burgers at the Shack in Hawaii Kai - the best kine food to top off a nice strenuous hike. :)

After the hike and burgers, I think Rebecca and I managed to sneak in a very short nap before heading back out for dancing at the Atherton YMCA. I thought that place was supposed to have been converted to lame office space... at least that was the rumor a couple of years ago. So I'm happy to say that hasn't been the case. :)

Atherton of course was followed up by ice cream at Bubbies, which was then followed up by some more night fishing at the "groin" with Daniel. We still only managed to catch little tiny fish. And I kept losing hooks... either getting them caught on a reef, or lines snapping on me when I cast. Bah. But we stayed out late enought that it made sense to watch the moon set... at 2:53am!

Harriman Hike

Ok so it took a while for me to post about it, but a couple Saturdays ago, Kenji and I went hiking with some of the same folks I've gone hiking with before, and also some new people. This time we went to Harriman State Park, which is just across the border in New York.

Our friend and hike leader, Jason, says that Harriman has many different trails - the one he chose for us that day was in the Seven Hills Area of the park. I didn't count how many hills we went up and down, but it was hilly. And we were all complaining about it by the time we were halfway through the hike. ;) I'm not sure we ever really officially got onto the seven hills trail, as we never followed the path indicated by the arrow painted on the rock in this photo of Kenji.

As proof that we did manage to climb at least one hill along our way, here's a picture I took of the distant and hazy NYC skyline:

Here's the whole group of us, after we finished lunch.

We met some cool new people on this hike. In particular was Nancy, who when she was twenty-six, decided to fly off to Ghana just for the heck of it and see what she could do to help out over there. She said when she got off the plane, one of the first things she did was go to a bar and talk to some of the people who happened to be there. They ended up showing her around some. Since then, she's gone back every summer. She even started a rural school, which she helps to fund through a non-profit organization she founded, Global Youth Empowerment.

Little Hike with Daddy :)

After the baseball game on Saturday, Kenji and I drove out to stay with my parents in central Massachusetts. On Easter, my dad and I took a nice walk along one of the old defunct rail road beds that are nearby. Here's some of what we saw...

The first two pictures are of a little dam that gave out after all the rains they had last fall. It didn't seem to me that the dam break had that big of an effect on things though, since the beavers took care of building their own dam just a little upstream of this one.


I don't think this is the beaver dam I was referring to earlier. It's just one of the many beaver dams that we saw along our way.


This is my friend Sankey. If you click on the picture, you will get to see a little movie of Snakey attacking me (and rightfully so, because I was bothering him, trying to get him to stick his tongue out at me for the movie!). If you watch carefully, you'll see that Sankey does stick his tongue out at me after he finishes his mighty lunge. :)

Yep, another beaver dam. This one is slightly upstream of a little footbridge that also got washed out in the rains in the fall. As you can see, the footbridge was replaced by a dead tree (I think chopped down by the beavers), and a nice little lenth of rope for a handrail. :)

Watchung Reservation Hike

Blog posts are much easier if I just show pictures. ;)

After a nice late night out at the Whippany swing dance, followed by some food at the Brookside Diner, I got up (sort of) early this morning to meet some people for a hike in Watchung Reservation. It was myself with my hiking buddy, Jason, along with his friend Kylie, and her two friends Andy and Amy. So it was nice to spend some time with some new folks.

We hiked maybe five or six miles. Along the way, we spotted...

... a turtle (actually saw three, but the other two slipped back into the water before I could get a picture)...


... some water falling over a dam ...


... a pre-revolutionary grave yard (this was the only stone that appeared to be original from way back when) ...

... a little pond covered in algae ...


... more algae piled up just beyond the tiny little dam ...


... and some glacial erratics! (Note the sign is right next to some cinder blocks...very glacially erratic I think.)