And This, Our Life: Social Distancing, Simple Gifts, and Silver Linings in Jenny Jump State Forest

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

-- William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Summit and Ghost Lake Trails

Jenny Jump State Forest

5.5 miles out and back, moderate

As days of social distancing dissolve into weeks, we're finding that customary day hike destinations are feeling a bit crowded. Even as we continue to look for good in everything, we observe that parking areas are filling up fast, paths are growing congested, and the ambience of the good-to-great outdoors is often in danger of becoming, dare we say, cacophonous. And so Brad, ever the accomplished social distancer, picks up the iPad and conducts some research, seeking local destinations exempt from public haunt. He is heartened and I am happy to read that the state's parks and forest lands remain open for hiking and passive recreation. We're in no humor for aggressive recreation, so this sounds about right. Thus, on a springtime-like-no-other late March morning, we lace up our hiking boots and prepare to hit the ground hiking: we're heading to Warren County, to the sublime rolling countryside of northwestern New Jersey. The Jenny Jump State Forest promises fabulous views, removal from news, ambulation on well-marked trails, scrambulation across geologic features... a landscape steeped in natural history and cloaked, we discover, in folkloric mystery. 

I have my camera in tow, and we've packed proper hydration, a bag of peanut butter crackers, a Red Delicious apple, two York Peppermint Patties and, with a nod to the times and just in case, a small dispenser of hand sanitizer. Our stated plan is to complete an out-and-back hike cobbling together two of the park's popular routes: the yellow-blazed Summit Trail and the turquoise-marked Ghost Lake Trail.

At the Trailhead: Notch Parking Area.

The parking lot at the trailhead is quiet and eerily empty. Our hike begins on a well-marked gravel-scattered road, climbing a quick five hundred feet before bearing right and beginning a more gradual ascent on a wooded two-track trail.

Ascending the Summit Trail.

We take a short, cedar-lined spur to an exposed rock ledge with beguiling views: to the east, the Great Valley; right before us, a looming cone-shaped mountain called The Pinnacle; and to the west, a glimpse-through-the-trees of the Delaware Water Gap.

Looking East.

The trail levels off as it reaches the one-thousand-plus-a-few-feet ridge line of Jenny Jump Mountain. We follow a broad grassy path, rock-strewn in most spots, with sporadic views of the forest and fertile farmland of the valley floor to the east. Periodically, we spot a broad-winged hawk circling vigilantly in the big blue sky above us.

Unceremoniously Dumped: Limestone Glacial Erratic.

We are surrounded by remnants and reminders of the area's glaciated past. During the Wisconsin Glacial Episode, an ice sheet over a mile thick moved southward from Canada, gouging valleys, transporting boulders, sediment, and all manner of natural debris, depositing the load across mountain tops and valley floors before receding 21,000 years ago. We locate ample evidence of glacial mayhem along the trail: striated outcrops, kettle holes, limestone erratics, and jumbled rock.

Summit Trail Panoramic Vista.

Less than a mile from the trailhead, we arrive at another exposed ledge, this one with a welcoming bench and a panoramic vista of the Highlands and the Pequest River Valley to the west. We spy the Delaware Water Gap on the horizon, approximately twelve miles to the northwest, a river-carved chasm through the Kittatinny Mountains. On the New Jersey side, the right side, that's Mt. Tammany; and there's Mt. Minsi on the Pennsylvania side, the left side. In other times, the Massams have climbed and clambered and scrambled to loftier overlooks, to more precarious points, to grander heights-- endeavors that dazzled our senses and literally took our collective breath away. But today, in this time, our view from one-thousand feet or so above sea level is lovely-enough and figuratively breathtaking. We are, for a spell, high above it all, far and away from the invisible storm of viral contagion and confusion and concern raging across the planet. And as for those stratocumulus clouds gathering themselves so picturesquely along the skyline? They have, I decide, silver linings-- for here is the good in everything.

Hardwood Host: Artistic Lichen.

Jenny Jump: According to theme-and-variation legend, the etymology of the area's unusual name dates back to settler days: a young girl (or young maiden) named Jenny resided in this remote area with her aged father. While picking berries along the ridge, she was taken by surprise (or accosted) by a Native American (or spurned suitor). At this point, either her father shouted, Jenny, Jump! or she, of her own virginal volition, chose death over dishonor-- and Our Legendary Jenny plunged to her demise (although, in at least one version of the legend, she survived the leap). Some say, not surprisingly, that Jenny's restless spirit roams this forest. Not fake news... fake folklore? Maybe. But a poignant, whimsical story, nonetheless, and something to think about as our hike continues.

Tongues in Trees: Trekking through Hardwood Forest.

Departing the overlook, we move through rocky and rolling woodland. Our path intersects with the yellow-blazed Spring Trail and ends at a T-shaped intersection with the Ghost Lake Trail. We turn right because that's the right way to go. Turquoise blazes guide us along a cobble-strewn, root-bound two-track trail, the forest offering an array of hardwood trees and increasingly dramatic boulder piles. Two steep, rocky descents, mud-slicked after yesterday's rain, require our careful step and close attention. Before long, the trail broadens a bit; here, in the ancient forest, we briefly see-and-hear flashes of traffic on closer-than-we-thought Route 80.

Sermons in Stones: Moss and Fern on Boulder.

The trail turns lower and lower, lined with large boulders cloaked in lush green fern and moss. We're losing elevation in short order, making a curving descent to the lake along a busily gurgling stream.

Legend and Lore: Ghost Lake.

Ghost Lake, created in the early twentieth century when two local men decided to dam the nearby creek, is purportedly named for wraithlike vapors that often rise from the lake's atmospheric silver-blue surface. Shakespeare looked for books in the running brooks; we get the somewhat spooky sense that here, there are legends and lore along the lakeshore.

Across a Grassy Causeway.

We stroll across a grassy causeway that splits the lake in two. It is here that we find today's opportunity to practice social distancing. We spot a man sitting on a rock on the far shoreline, way over there. We speculate that he parked on nearby Shades of Death Road, a route steeped in macabre local mythology-- Native American spirits, moonshine, murder. What is it about this place!

On the Shore of Ghost Lake.

Ghost Lake.

Brad pulls the Peppermint Patties from his pocket. We nibble on them, surveying our surroundings. We've stood on the shoreline of Lake Superior, walked along the windswept water's edge of Lake Yellowstone, taken in the unfathomable blue depths of Crater Lake. By most measures, this is not the greatest, the grandest, nor the most wondrous lake we've visited. But we're accepting simple gifts of here-and-now, and Ghost Lake is peaceful and evocative and something-to-see.

Before long, as decreed by definition in an out-and-back hike, having completed the out, we begin the back: retracing our footsteps, reviewing what we've seen and reflecting on all that we see- in reverse. It's metaphorically instructive to note that in these fraught times-- at all times, in fact-- a steep descent on the way out means a steep ascent on the way back, and vice versa. The Laws of Nature, The Lay of the Land...

Budding Bush and Bird's Nest along the Causeway.

Likin' the Weird Lichen.

As we make our way along the ridge line, we encounter another human, a solitary man who appears quite comfortable ambling along these rugged trails. We exchange beautiful-day-needed-some-fresh-air pleasantries and pass-- at the prescribed distance. When we return to our vehicle-- and the peanut butter crackers, the Red Delicious apple, and the hand sanitizer, we ascertain, from his vehicle, that he's a park ranger-on-patrol.

Good in Everything: Summit Trail Panorama.

There's a song I've revisited time and again over the years. Simple Gifts is a nineteenth-century Shaker song, its melody gaining popular attention in the mid-twentieth century in Aaron Copeland's Appalachian Spring and then in the early twenty-first century, beautifully performed by Yo-Yo Ma and Allison Krauss: 

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'Tis the gift to be free,

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

It will be in the valley of love and delight....

It's a song celebrating simplicity, a refrain encouraging humility, full of bowing and bending and turning in time. Instructions for dancing, in hiking boots perhaps, and, I like to think, a call for acceptance and resiliency, for graciously receiving simple gifts, for relentlessly seeking silver linings, in the continuing dance of this, our life.