Watchungs

	One more ridge to ride, the Watchungs were formed in a second volcanic extrusion and are younger than the Palisades. Taller too. The steep escarpment facing east runs much like a wall protecting the Jersey interior. Bloomfield Avenue passes by the ridge at Montclair. Hard to imagine this as a scene of bucolic inspiration when the artists' colony was formed and George Inness lived here. On Upper Mountain Road however, a plein air painting class was safely ensconced in the Van Vleck House gardens when I visited and an art museum endures and thrives at the town center. You'll find multi-million dollar designer homes perched on the hillside, nip and tuck to each other as if in some surrealist's cul de sac. Their views over the plains to the city are magisterial. South on Lloyd Street a gate opens into the woods and tight switchbacks lead uphill to arrive on top in an open park. Eagle Rock Reservation has a new monument at the overlook. In bronze an eagle soars above an open book and a child with a Teddy bear, fire and policemen's hats stand to each side. On a polished granite wall behind them the names and hometowns of all those lost on 9/11 are listed before a sweeping view with the breadth of Manhattan on the horizon.

	Pleasant Valley Way follows the Rahway past nicely tended homes and a golf course to South Mountain Reservation. And pleasant it is with large grass fields, picnic grounds, and miles of hiking trails. A mountain scene of flyfishers wading in Diamond Mill Pond's blossoming spring woods reflection does seem out of place, but the fishing is real even if the fish are stocked. Pine and hemlock once provided lumber for the settlement of Newark, then second growth for local papermills. You can drive to the top of the ridge, but you'll have to walk the last mile of the old carriage road to reach Washington Rock. Another rock, another lookout, in this case it's a George Washington stood here. At least his sentries. In June of 1780. With a deforested view to New York Harbor, troop movements were easily monitored and gave forewarning of a pincer movement of British and Hessians, the gap 500 feet below a natural path to the rebel encampment at Morristown. The attack was unsuccessful.

	The steeples of Millburn center you see below now, and across the cut of I 78 the next peak in Watchung Reservation. I want to find Surprise Lake there to see if it still is. Finding a way through mazes of roads around rte 22 & the interstate isn't easy, but then finally a left in the woods off Glenside Avenue and yes. Pretty, pretty spot in a steep sided dale, a portion is densely covered with lily pads in a sunset as impressionistic as any Van Gogh. The County has one of those improvement project signs there to explain that all that lily is not a good sign actually. Due to an overabundance of pollutants, then the plants deplete the oxygen and fish choke. They have a plan.

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