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Our work continues
- Ed Goodell
We at the Trail Conference are deeply affected by the tragic turn
of events. We closed our office on September 11
in mourning for the loss of life, pain and suffering, and attack
upon our freedoms. All Trail Conference members, all people, are
touched by this in ways we can only vaguely
imagine.
Despite the pain of our members and that of our fellow citizens, we
are moved forward by the idea that hiking in a
natural setting is a good thing, a positive step that can bring
one comfort. We all need the most positive outlook possible to cope
with this disaster. We suggest that our members
who are grieving, indeed everyone, to venture out into
the beautiful fall days for a healing hike with friends.
Contribute your own writing or to a memorial fund
- Writing about your personal loss is a major step
toward healing. We will publish your writings here and/or in the Trail
Walker if you submit
them or you can just save them for your own remembrance.
- Trail Walker only submissions:
In times of crisis or stress, many of us turn to nature; we want
to take
a walk in the woods. There is solace there, though I am not sure
what it
is or why. As I count my losses and blessings in the aftermath of
last
week's violence in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, I find
myself
wondering: What are the consolations of a walk in nature?
I know other people similarly turn to their favorite trails-in the
woods, on mountains, along streams or lakes or oceans. What solace
do
they seek and find? How does it happen? Are you one of these
people?
Where do you go? Is it solace that you seek, or some other
blessing?
The Trail Walker invites your thoughts on these questions as we
prepare
to compile the Nov/Dec issue of our publication next week.
Georgette Weir
Trail Walker Editor
(845) 462-1909
[email protected]
- If you would like to make a memorial contribution
to trail land preservation, you may do so by
going to our hikers' Market Place and selecting
Contributions. Fill in the comment field with your designation
of who it is in memory of or just the word "WTC" if in
memory of all the victims. Your donation will go to
the Trail Conference Outdoor Fund and be
used specifically to acquire more trail lands.
The family of the person(s) you designate will be informed that
you have made a memorial donation but, with the
amount unspecified.
- See contribute to relief effort below.
The View No More
- Glenn Scherer
Yesterday, September 12th, I woke up feeling the need for a walk.
So I drove out to Longhouse Road, strapped on a water bottle, and
started through the woods on the Appalachian Trail toward Bearfort
Ridge.
I've walked the Trail in this part of northern New Jersey often,
but it was as quiet as I've ever heard it, with only crickets and
crows, the squeaking of my boots, and the silence overhead utterly
without planes.
The witch hazel, the only tree to flower in autumn, hadn't
blossomed yet, but its leaves were trimmed in yellow. I crossed a dry
creek bed where there should have been water. We were 12 weeks into a
drought, with some leaves already turned and fallen.
In a mile, I reached a valley that has changed from hickory forest
to beaver pond in the past two years. This dry summer, the pond had
changed yet again, becoming a sedgy meadow. The beavers had moved on.
Without their pond--their moat--there was no safety here.
I climbed steeply and reached a spot where drab gray
billion-year-old bedrock gave way to puddingstone--a gorgeous purple
conglomerate imbedded with white quartz. Now I was on Bearfort Ridge,
probably named as a last stronghold of black bears in pioneer days.
This ridge isn't tall by Appalachian Trail standards, but is high
enough. Just before I stepped beyond the trees at the summit, I wanted
to stop, turn back, not see. Then I pushed through the last bear oak
and staghorn sumac. I knew right where to look at the far edge of the
folded green hills. But there was only smoke and a goldfinch.
The Twin Towers were gone. On the far horizon, half an outstretched
fist south of the Empire State Building, the blue sky was wounded by
billowing smoke. Standing on that ridge that morning, I knew the
rescue workers hadn't even begun to count the dead. I found a spot
next to a pitch pine and sat.
I had hiked to this vista with my wife Marty only the week before
and seen the Towers. How could we have imagined then that we would
never see them again? Memories rose with the smoke. I recalled taking
my brother's family to the Trade Center Observation Deck on a crisp
December morning 15 years ago. We had looked off toward the Highlands
and I had pointed to this ridge.
On another Twin Towers visit, I had watched the Dalai Lama's
saffron-robed monks make a circular sand painting, a fragile peace
mandala in the Trade Center lobby. Now the unspeakable violence that
drove the Tibetans to sanctuary in America had come around the world
to us.
In the past, spotting most human-made structures--housing
developments or transmission towers--from the Appalachian Trail had
detracted from my hiking experiences. But not the Twin Towers. There
was always something miraculous about them, something bold, startling,
powerful.
The new vista was full of pain. New York City had now joined
Beirut, Tel Aviv, Baghdad, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, and other Third
World skylines scarred by smoke. The Twin Towers, which I once
described as standing like dual tombstones, now, in their absence,
marked a grave for the innocent.
As someone who often writes about these hills--about the history
of Appalachian landscapes battered by 19th century forest clearcutting
or blasted by mining< --I had always stressed nature's ability to heal
itself. How, I wondered, would we do in healing ourselves?
The smoke above the ridge didn't speak of terror. Instead it was
graceful, this language of smoke, the way it rose up, leveled out, and
smoothly glided away, whitish atop, grayish beneath. The sun was
fierce on the puddingstone. The flies were bad. I didn't sit long. As
I prepared to go there was a solitary call: chick-a-dee-dee, chick-a-dee-dee-dee.
High overhead a lone military jet attracted my ear. I turned an eye
up quickly to catch the third quarter crescent moon hung in blue
infinity like some inscrutable haiku.
On the way home I gathered in my mind the names of local mountains
from which I could once see the Towers: the basalt heights of the
Palisades and Watchung Range, Wyanokie High Point, Pyramid Mountain,
High Tor, Mount Taurus, Sterling Ridge, and at a score of Appalachian
Trail overlooks. The view has changed forever. I'll never look from
these green hills toward that city in the same way again. None of us
will.
The words written in trail guidebooks now linger in the culture
like ghosts. Years from now, whenever a hiker reaches a vista in our
region and scans that place in the text describing where the view of
the Twin Towers should be, there will come a shock, a deep chasm
between the innocent past and the dangerous now. There will be the
moment of remembering. Instead of ridge-upon-ridge stretching out to
touch twin silhouettes, there will arise a feeling of inexpressible
loss hinted at in these lines from poet Kenneth Rexroth:
My sorrow is so wide
I cannot see across it;
And so deep that I shall
Never reach the bottom of it.
This new horizon, seen from rocky crags, seems like a good place to
meditate on the way through to peace.
List of viewpoints of the Manhattan skyline
NY
- Bear Mountain - Harriman
- Black Mountain - Harriman
- The Timp - Harriman
- Ramapo Thorne - Harriman
- Bull Hill (Mt. Taurus) - Hudson Highlands
- High Tor
- Hook Mountain
- Mombasha High Point - AT
- Denning Hill (south view) - AT
- Sterling Forest Fire Tower
- Turkey Mountain - Yorktown
- Mt. Beacon Fire Tower
- Diamond Mountain - Harriman
- Anthony's Nose (only Empire State Building now shows over the
Dunderberg-Bald Mt. ridge)
- ...
NJ
-
Palisades
- Bearfort Ridge - Abram Hewitt
- Watchung Range
- Wyanokie High Point - Norvin Green
- Pyramid Mountain
- South Mtn Reservation - Milburn Lenape Trail
- Eagle Rock Reservation - West Orange Lenape Trail
- Mills Reservation - Montclair Lenape Trail
- Garret Mtn - Paterson
- High Mountain - Haledon
Ilgenstein Rock - Hoeferlin Tr. - Ringwood
...
Suggest more.
Contribute money for relief
Environmental Groups Mobilizing to Help Victims of Terrorist
Attacks in New York and Washington Environmental
Defense and Environmental Defense Action Network
extend our sympathy to the victims of this week's
senseless violence. In response to this tragedy, we
are joining hands with many of the Action Network partner
groups to mobilize more than 1,000,000 email activists
to take action in a new way...to make an online
donation to organizations working tirelessly to
assist victims of the terror, their families and rescue
workers.
As a member of Environmental Defense Action Network, we
ask that you please consider giving online to any of
the following organizations:
Trust,
the September 11th fund provides needed services to
victims and their families.
The
American Red Cross
The Red Cross is providing immediate disaster mass care
and blood to victims and emergency workers in New
York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania following the
attacks of September 11.
Helping.org
A comprehensive listing of online donation opportunities
to help in this time of need.
Thank you for taking action online to help those in need
during this tragedy.
Sincerely,
Fred Krupp,
Executive Director
Environmental Defense
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