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Scenes From The Ny Nj Highlands Mountaintops
t's a sultry June day on cities of North Jersey with
the summit of Wyanokie High essential water. Streaks of rusty
Point, 920 feet high in the color in the rocks of High Point
northeast corner of the New summit show the iron content of
Jersey Highlands. People in the Highlands gneiss, which in rich
towns below swelter, and to the veins was a source of iron ore
east the New York City skyline for the rebellious colonies and
steams in the humid air, but up the thriving nineteenth century
here a steady breeze drifts in iron industry of New Jersey. The
from the higher mountains to the smooth summit of High Point was
west. Hikers come up here in all polished about 15,000 years ago
seasons, under different skies; by the abrasion of ice and rocks
sometimes the air swirls, bursts embedded in the mile-thick
in gusts, or tries to carry you Wisconsin glacier, and a close
away, but always it moves, like look at the summit rocks will
the tides of an invisible sea. show you small flecks of
crystalline quartz and feldspar
Those tides run back into all formed during a continental
kinds of histories, whose collision thousands of millions
consequences are part of the of years ago, just as visible
scenery. To the northeast on the life was beginning to appear on
ridge of Ramapo Mountain you can our planet. Hundreds of millions
see recent housing developments, of years of erosion by water and
lines of townhouses along Skyline wind have worn them down to the
Drive. The great Wanaque crystalline rock foundations you
Reservoir below to the east, sit on now.
completed in 1930, covered 70
homesteads, farms and commercial Although the view from the top of
buildings of the Wanaque River High Point will seem much the
valley to supply the growing same next week, and even next
year, the world of the Highlands again.
is not static, but the product of
processes of change proceeding on On this mountaintop, where you
time scales ranging from decades sit quietly in a soft breeze, you
to eons. Every day, grain by are part of many natural cycles
grain, water and wind erode the that create new forests,
rock of High Point summit, watercourses, mountains, and
carrying it down to the soil civilizations out of the remains
below, into brooks and streams, of the old. And every year, in
and finally to the sea. There it another important cycle, new
is deposited on the continental hikers, young and old, make their
shelf, and pushed deep into the way to the summit of Wyanokie
crust of the Earth to form new High Point to appreciate the
sedimentary rock, which awaits beauty of the Highlands, and to
the next collision of continents wonder how their generations may
to be raised into mountains influence its future.
About the Author:
Paul Simari owns and operates http://www.highlandshiker.org His website relates to the works of George Petty, writer, poet and experienced hiker, NY, NJ Trail Conference and Highlands Mountains hiking trails. Other sites include: http://www.ADCOAudioBooks.com
Read more articles by: Paul Simari
Article Source: www.iSnare.com |
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