Warwick's Black Rock Shelter has endured fire, ice, wind and rain.
Some thin places are fragile. I was planning on writing about the all-season delight of the mile-long walk on the Appalachian Trail Boardwalk off Glenwood Road in Vernon, across a flood plain and the suspension bridge over the Pochuck River. For years I have been walking that crooked path low through wetlands, over a river and back onto land.
That was before Hurricane Irene returned the flood plain into a form of the pre-historic lake it used to be. The boardwalk was made by volunteers over a seven-year period after 17 years of planning and acquiring the land. It was designed, smartly, to float up a bit during high water, but the waters of Irene were way too much and actually displaced the whole boardwalk. The New York-New Jersey Trail Conference is gathering people to help fix this and many of the natural trails in the region. You can help (nynjtc.org).
And some thin places endure. I’ve been visiting area rock shelters, natural caves where there is evidence of human use for thousands of years. Yes, I want to sit where they sat! “They” are bands of Delaware or Lenni-Lenape Indians… and who knows before that?
Just outside Florida, off Route 17A on Quarry Road at a “Protected Area” sign, the land rises to the famous Dutchess Quarry Caves, a huge cavern that has been dated back 12,000 years. Other shelters on the property were blown up years ago by the quarry owners. There are many smaller shelters around that have been dated to the Late Archaic period, about three to four thousand years ago.
One is in Warwick just off Brady Road and Magnolia Lane. Just before the first house on the right on Magnolia Lane, you can bushwhack up a small hill to “Mount Lookout,” the rocky outcroppings that form the shelter. Go find it and sit.
– Daniel Mack, Warwick
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