What's Right Beneath Our Feet

The hunters have gone and the South Mountain Reservation is quiet again, wrapped in a thick swath of healing snow. Perhaps the heavy downfalls of the last several weeks are exactly what the forest needs to recover from the deer hunt's wounds.

I can't help but consider the ghosts who inhabit the forest's mid-winter stillness.  Yes, some of them are recently killed deer, but alongside them are representatives of vast generations of humans, animals and the earth itself. The South Mountain Reservation is not just a beautiful swatch of undeveloped real estate. It is witness to all that has ever happened in this particular corner of the earth since the very beginning.

It's easy to take for granted the landscape of these New Jersey suburbs; most of us think little about its past or origins. We forget, as we zip off in our cars to work, the mall, karate class or Trader Joe's that, as we rush, we rush past wonders.

I remind myself of this nearly every morning on my daily hike, recalling that I am walking over stones formed by one of the greatest volcanic eruptions that ever occurred in the history of the world. Yes, that's right. Right here beneath our feet is the root of a basalt ridge formed 200 million years ago by volcanoes.

Back then, this part of New York and New Jersey practically kissed the northwestern shoulder of Africa. We sat at the center of the supercontinent Pangaea until a series of mass eruptions split the surface of the earth apart, driving fragments to the south, east, north and west to create the Atlantic Ocean. Besides causing the mass extinctions that ended the Triassic era, this tectonic disaster also created the Watchung Mountains, which include the South Mountain Reservation.

When I told my six-year-old this, his jaw dropped, his eyes grew wide and he could barely find enough air to breathe, "Mommy, show me!"

So last autumn we hiked the Orange Trail. We started at Turtle Back Rock in West Orange where I pointed out the delicate hexagons that outline the turtle's back and the large lumps of spongy-looking pumice that dot the path's edges. I even let him scramble along the nerve-wracking precipice that forms Hemlock Falls. Years ago in Iceland, I saw similar hexagonal columns of black basalt, formed when lava rapidly cooled as it struck the sea. In the Reservation, the evidence is far less dramatic, but only because it happened so long ago.

Fast forward a hundred million years or so and we find the Reservation inhabited by giants.  All along the Watchung Range which extends from Mahwah to Far Hills, geologists have found evidence of late Jurassic and early Cretaceous dinosaurs.  In fact, at nearby Riker Hill in Livingston some of the smallest dinosaur tracks in the world were found in 1968.  Unfortunately you can't go to see them these days.  That part of the park is closed to the public.

Moving into the historical era, our forests were the home of the native Lenape peoples. Little evidence remains of their culture in our everyday lives besides what they teach in elementary schools and place-names like the word "Watchung" itself which means "the high hills" in the Lenape language.

No doubt these woods back then were abundant and lush. Reports from the 1680s tell of wolves, bears and cougars in the area. I often think of this when I hike by the Turtle Back Zoo and once even asked how they kept the animals from escaping into the forest. The zookeeper assured me that they have very good security.

A couple of centuries later, John Durand, son of Hudson River School painter and Maplewoodian Asher Brown Durand, described our region as

"a wilderness…, a primitive forest abounding with deer and other wild animals, and traversed by streams alive with trout. Game was plentiful–partridges, quail, woodcock, rabbits, squirrels of every species, raccoons and foxes; while occasionally a hungry bear that had trespassed on the farmyards in the vicinity would be tracked to its den and shot."

With the introduction of Europeans, like any invasive species, the landscape quickly changed. During colonial times, the forest was rife with sawmills along the sinuous Rahway River. The Reservation also played a role in the American Revolution.  Washington's Rock–that turreted platform at the farthest turn in Crest Drive–was "Beacon Signal Station 9," one of 23 observation points from which George Washington surveyed the movements of British troops. From there, the General received warning of an incursion headed for Hobart Gap that he stopped in a bitter battle along Vauxhall Road.

Hobart Gap. Vauxhall Road. It's hard to imagine bloody battles taking place on the route I take to Target or Five Guys.

Much less difficult, however, is to comprehend the reason the Reservation was created.  Even back in the 19th century, this ridge was heavily populated. In 1895 the newly formed Essex County Park Commission established the Reservation in an effort to preserve some small portion of its historic wildness. Combining several land purchases over nearly a decade, they created what remains the largest reservation in the county.

The Park Commission soon brought in the Olmsted Brothers firm founded by the nephew and stepson of Frederick Law Olmsted, revered for the naturalistic landscapes he designed for many of the nation's most famous parks, including Central Park in Manhattan. The Olmsteds excavated lakes, added man-made mounds, and planted trees and shrubs.  Even the luxurious stretches of rhododendron and mountain laurel near Hemlock Falls were introduced, all seamlessly integrated to give the Reservation its feeling of untouched woodiness.

To discover that the "wilderness" where I walk nearly every day is actually the result of conscientious human intervention doesn't make spending time there any less enchanting. In fact, given the stresses of today's encroaching suburban sprawl, pollution, over-browsing deer and climate change, it makes the Reservation all the more precious and gives me hope for its continued resilience.

Soon a fresh bloom will bring new life to our woods. In the few short days between storms when the snow partially melted, I already observed small sprigs of green pushing through ice-crusted mud and leaf-buds ripening on branch tips like small, green fruits. This forest has witnessed this cycle of renewal season after season, year after year without concern for the human argument that goes on around it.

Personally, I'm anxious to start working with the South Mountain Conservancy to bring the forest back to its former not-quite-wild glory. Each time I hike, I take a detour to my little corner of the Res, lay my hand on the wire fence and search for signs of spring.