Tom's Insane Hike Posse

Sourland Mountain Preserve

26 January 2019

"This feels weird," Jack H said. "No bikes."

We were standing around Tom's car in the Sourland Mountain Preserve parking lot. Despite living near here for decades, Tom had never been up the mountain. Ricky hadn't either. Pete and I had, but for me it'd been so long that I couldn't remember when my last time was.

I also hadn't gone on a hike in two years. My boots died on the last one. The replacements had been on my feet all of four times: three to shovel snow, and today.

Ricky had a real camera with him and took real pictures.

Tom and Jack had plotted our route to go counter-clockwise towards Roaring Rocks and Devil's Half Acre. I remembered the main trail being easy enough to do in sneakers. Today was too cold for sneakers. I was wearing insulated boots with wool socks and toe warmers. I ditched the warmers before we'd even started going uphill. On the side trails the terrain was very rocky, icy, and sometimes wet. It was no place for sneakers.

We crossed over the Texas Eastern gas line right of way on the lower end of the mountain.  We were following the ridge trail to Roaring Rocks. On our way we heard a low rumbling. With my sucky hearing and sucky outdoor hearing aids I couldn't tell what it was. Tom and Jack weren't sure either. At first we thought it might be a small airplane, but there aren't any little airports near enough to the mountain for that. As we got further up we could make out the telltale clacking of freight cars on the rail line that passes to the east of the mountain.

We reached a boulder field. "Is this Devil's Half Acre?" some of us asked. "No. This is Roaring Rocks." The sound was loudest at Roaring Rocks, and we wondered if what we were hearing was the Roaring Rock brook tumbling down the mountain.

But there wasn't enough water here for that, and the clackity-clack didn't sound like water either. There are freight lines to the north and east of the mountain, and from up here, in the dead of winter, it wouldn't surprise me if we could hear a mile-long train for five miles. As we left the boulder field the sound didn't fade away; it just stopped, the way the end of a train does.

There were cairns along the trail.

In a low spot, water had ponded and frozen.

Under the surface we could see bubbles emerging from the leaves below. Other bubbles had frozen at the ice surface.

"Methane," Tom explained. As leaves decompose they release the gas.

Jack H ventured out on the ice.

We reached the gas line again and walked a little way down the hill to see if we could get a glimpse of Newark or New York City. On a clear day it's possible.

Today was too hazy. At 40x zoom I could barely make out the dim outlines of a few tall buildings.

We entered the woods again.

I stopped for some close-ups of ice on the trail.

More random boulders:

At the next boulder field we climbed onto one of them to look around. "Is this Devil's Half Acre?" It wasn't.

Around the bend a tree was weeping red-orange sap icicles.

From the other side the sun beamed through the tree snot.

Near that was a collection of cairns.

Then another boulder filed. "Is this Devil's Half Acre?"

Unlike the other fields, this one towered over our heads.

"Yes."

Downhill from that was a rather grumpy-looking arrangement of rocks:

Then we were going downhill, carefully picking our way between rocks and skirting patches of ice.

I stopped near the trail head for two more pictures.

So that's my annual hike out of the way. Tomorrow we'll be on our road bikes again, finally.