Trip to NJ Botanical Gardens

I find it amazing that where I live in New Jersey, I can be 40 minutes away from Manhattan and 50 minutes away from a quiet, blossoming mountain.

Two weekends ago, I discovered this after driving to the New Jersey Botanical Gardens, which sit up at the top of New Jersey near the New York border.

While the gardens seem quite small and anticlimactic at first, the real gem of the property is the massive mountain at the back. The trail head is small, behind a rather inconspicuous gate at the back near the slightly overgrown rock garden. It can easily be missed.

This mountain was so airy and green. It reminded me of some Lord of the Rings scene with its rocky steps and skinny trees. There was a light breeze and gurgling sound of a brook below. The path is rocky and thin, where you have to burrow yourself deep into the trees to remain six feet away from the occasional hiker as they pass by.

After taking Introduction to Geology this semester, it was so rewarding to see examples of what I had learned. I saw the immature rocks, which are not yet rounded by erosion or sorted by transportation. I know during mountain building you can see all sorts of rock, and I definitely saw igneous rock and some sedimentary rocks. There was a meandering river with a sandy point bar. I saw some boulders laced with strips of igneous rock, a result of dikes and sills intruding long ago. In an effort to learn more about New Jersey's geologic history, I read this webpage: https://www.greatswamp.org/blog/new-jerseys-unique-geology/. It turns out maybe that area doesn't have as much granite as I thought but maybe more marble!

At the top of the mountain is a view of some more mountains, a far away lake, and the edge of the botanical gardens below. The way the sound travels is very strange. You can hear the echo of a screaming kid or leaf blower down below, but the little people are so far away!

Even if you are not a mountain climber, the Botanical Gardens hold a lot more than I expected. There's a pond full of frogs, a lawn perfect for running up and down on with your dog, a (closed) event space that you can imagine is a fancy Tutor country house, and rows of lilac bushes that smell so fresh and sweet in early May.

I'm definitely going to interlace trips to the bustling and grimy New York City with a hike to this refreshing song-bird and boulder laden mountain in the future.