The Edison Wetlands Association needs our help:

“On Monday, November 16 at 7PM, the Edison Township Planning Board will host a hearing on a proposed development plan in the 1,240-acre Dismal Swamp Conservation Area. This application would require a diversion of stormwater onto Green Acres property, which would potentially have catastrophic effects, as seen in the past, on this beautiful natural area that is home to threatened and endangered species.”

Click here to read the full announcement.

Click here for the council members email and phone numbers.

The Asbury Park Press recently wrote an article about the use of GonaCon, which is a drug that is supposed to prevent does, along with other animals, from becoming pregnant.

This sounds like a good idea on the surface. New Jersey has a ‘problem’ with deer, we have been expanding into their habitat, so now there are too many. My concern with deer is that they carry deer ticks, which are believed to transmit Lyme’s disease. The larger the population of deer, the larger the population of deer ticks. In turn, this increases my chances of getting bit by a deer tick carrying Lyme’s disease.

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As I’ve said before, I’m  fairly new to hiking, so I was looking for a good ‘all-around’ shoe. Since I’m not exactly sure what I like, and wanted a shoe that would be suited for most things. One of the best sources in my opinion that I’ve found for researching gear is Backpacker Magazine. Conveniently enough, the La Sportiva Exum Pro was rated best all-around shoe.

The Exum Pro is light & comfortable, which helps you stay on the trail longer. My previous boots were fairly heavy and caused my legs to get tired much quicker than the Exum Pro shoe. Since it is a meld between a running shoe and a climbing approach shoe, the traction is awesome. I was able to climb a short, steep incline of clay and gravel on mainly my toes, without feeling like I’d loose my footing at all. One draw back I noticed though is that since the treads aren’t very deep, traction can be affected when out in wet conditions, specifically in mud. I almost slipped and fell the other weekend, when it was wet out, I stepped on a rock after walking in the dirt, partially because my treads were full of mud, and partially because I was being clumsy.

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Saturday, October 3rd was the Ny-Nj Trail Conference’s 2nd Annual People for Trails Hike-a-Thon, which Liz & I participated in. It was at Bear Mountian State Park, NY, which is quite a nice park that we will be returning to in spring (unless we get a few nice days before winter). The weather left a bit to be desired, but after our week in Maine, we don’t let weather get us down, and had a good time. Liz & I didn’t arrive until 9:30, and the official start was at 7:30, so we found ourselves a bit lost. I felt things could have been organized a little better, but the rain may have caused issues for the organizers as well. It was not clear what we were supposed to do when we arrived, so we wandered over to what we hoped was the registration tent, and the people – although a bit flustered were friendly and helpful and got us registered and going quickly. When we made it back from the hike around 2pm, It seemed they were cleaning up and getting ready to leave. Maybe a more definite schedule would have been helpful.

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Last weekend Liz & I went camping at Worthington State Forest near the Deleware Water Gap in north-western NJ. I’ll write more about Worthington in another post, here I wanted to tell you about Dingmans Falls, which we visited while we were up there. I wasn’t too familiar with the Water Gap before going up there this time, and had only ever heard of Bushkill Falls. Turns out that Bushkill isn’t actually part of the NPS systems, and you have to pay a private owner a fee to go there. We were kind of short on funds, and the helpful ranger at the Kittatinny Point Visitor Center told us there are plenty of other waterfalls to see that are in the Deleware Water Gap NRA. We were going to go see Dingmans Falls & Raymondskill Falls, but we never made it to Raymondskill.

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Being fairly new to hiking, I’ve found some helpful websites that I thought I’d share:

American Hiking Society is a national organization to promote hiking and preserve open space. Besides offering great resources and information for hikers, they are constantly monitoring legislation that affects hiking. For instance, The Complete America’s Great Trails Act needs your support. Another great thing they offer are the Volunteer Vacations. I haven’t gone on one yet, but I love the idea and plan on taking one as soon as I have the opportunity. They are currently running a Member-Get-a-Member Campaign, so if you sign up, make sure to tell them Chris Townley sent you in the comments box.

Backpacker Magazine is a great resource for hiking, camping, and backpacking information. They have reviews of pretty much any gear you can find. Your membership to the American Hiking Society that you just signed up for will get you a free subscription.

New York-New Jersey Trail Conference: The NY-NJ Trail Conference is a good organization for those that live in the area. They offer information about local hikes, sell maps of the area, provide a way to get involved and volunteer to maintain and create trails, among other things. If you live in the NYC Metro area and enjoy hiking, you should become familiar with this group and their website.

Appalachian Mountain Club is another excellent resource for those of us who live near the Appalachian Mountains. They provide info on activities and volunteer opportunities.

Appalachian Trail Conservancy is a group focused on preserving and maintaining the AT. They also have a lot of info about the trail, naturally. If you are thinking about through hiking (Ten), or just doing a segment, check them out.

Local Hikes is a good site for finding are researching hikes. I have only used the New York/New Jersey area information, but it has been very helpful. The trail reviews are user submitted, and usually provide topo map overview, elevation profiles, trail head location, and a summary of the route. Sometimes there are pictures included and comments from other users that have hiked the same trail.

A recent e-mail from the Sierra Club irked me, I’m on there mailing list for the newsletter. Apparently the EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson called for greater diversity in the environmental movement while speaking to the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council two weeks ago. That is all well and good I suppose, we want everyone involved right? But why do we have to bring up the issue of race? I don’t understand why there is such a focus on the color of skin, is it because we have a black president now? I have no issue with the color of Obama’s skin. I like him better than Bush, who, as we all know, was white. It just confuses me, if we want racism to go away, maybe we should stop stoking the fire? I’m not saying we should ignore any problems, if there are racist actions they should be stopped, but there is no need for continuous reminders that there are people with different color skin.

I wonder how people who are not white and recieved this e-mail feel about it? Isn’t it kind of exclusionary?

See the post here: Yep, We’re too white.

The Bubbles at Acadia National Park, Maine

The Bubbles are aptly named, as you can see, because they look like two huge granite bubbles, or if you have a less pure mind, a healthy girl on her back. I guess naming them  after female anatomy would have been poor taste. The shapes were carved by glacial ice moving over the granite thousands of years ago, which also carved most of the landscape on Mount Dessert Island.

Cloudy sunrise on Cadillac Mountain

This photo is the product of miss-adventure, but it was still fun. We wanted to wake up early and go see sunrise from the top of Cadillac Mountain, but we had put it off the first few mornings. Thursday we woke up at 4 AM, sunrise was at 4:48. When we got up, it was still fairly dark, we could not actually see the sky until we had already driven half way to Cadillac Mountain from our campsite, at which point it started to rain. Since we were already up, we figured we’d keep going and see if the weather cleared. It didn’t really, as you can see in the photo, but I still like it. We never did get to see sunrise, it was rained for the rest of the week.

Granite cliffs near Sand Beach, Acadia National Park

I took this photo while trying to capture the golden light of sunset on the shoreline in the distance, but soon realized this was more interesting. Originally we were headed for Cadillac Mountain, but realized we would not make it before the light was gone.

Blackwoods Campground is one of the two camping areas within Acadia National Park. It is located on Route 3, five miles south of Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island, in Maine. We stayed there for seven nights, from June 13^th to June 20^th. It is a beautiful campground, and we cannot wait to return.

Our campsite, prepared for the rain.

The rangers were very helpful during our stay. When we arrived, they made sure to give us a larger site since we were staying so long.  The sites are all gravel, raised up from the area around it. I recommend bringing a sleeping pad or something else to sleep on. The bathrooms were nice, cleaned frequently, with flush toilets and running water. There are no showers in the campground, but there are coin operated showers on Route 3, just north of the park entrance. Also, the park does not sell any firewood, but there are plenty of people along Route 3 that sell it at a fair price.