This post will outline the details we’ve been able to pull together regarding our 2007 hike at Pyramid Mountain in New Jersey. For several reasons, the main one being that we headed to Arizona for a vacation shortly after this hike, we apparently never made any detailed notes of the experience. What follows is what we’ve been able to figure out. Note that the “tracklog” shown on the map below is just an approximation based on our photos and the route suggested by a hiking book that we were very likely referring to at the time.
Our day began with the drive to Morris County, and easy parking in the lot near the visitors center at 40.946667, -74.388167. We know that our hike took us to Bear Rock and Tripod Rock, but not as far as Whale Head Rock.
We found a geocache along the way, although for some reason we never logged it. Putting together some clues, we figure it must have been this one: Bare Roke II although the cache title doesn’t sound familiar to either of us. It can’t have been Bare Roke because that was archived in 2003, long before we were there. And it must have been in the Bear Rock area just based on the timestamps of the photos. There are no other geocaches, archived or otherwise, in the area that could have been the one we found. Also, you can just about see the beginning (and end) of Rich’s log in the logbook I’m holding in a few of the photos, and it looks like it begins with Howdy, BS! (referring to BrianSnat, the owner of Bare Roke II).
In an email dated Wed 5/30/2007 8:16 AM, I wrote: “I keep forgetting that I should probably log that “Bear Rock” cache we did at Pyramid Rock a couple weeks ago.”
After Bear Rock, we hiked on to Tripod Rock, where I had noted in an email to Rich that we had looked for a different geocache (Tripod Rock) but we were unable to find it. Rich wrote: “I just took a look at it. The most recent cacher logs showed no real problems with finding it. I still don’t see how the hint was of any help to them. But one log mentions it being a clever hide.”
I also found this reference in an old email message:
What were the names of the benchmarks in the 50 Hikes book that I was going to search for? (Or at least the names of the features?) I think one was called Bear Rock but I’ve forgotten the other one.
I don’t know what the names are exactly. One is near Pyramid Mountain, at Bear Rock. The text only mentions that the rock itself has been used as a boundary marker for years, and that there are old survey marks near the highest points.
The second one is at Ringwood Manor. The book says here that there’s a large rock to the left of the trail and that it had a BM on it. Further it mentions that it’s a remnant of the Cooper Union Camp.
The direct quote from the book, 50 Hikes in New Jersey by Bruce Scofield, Stella Green, and H. Neil Zimmerman (3rd edition, 2006) is:
Standing alone in the woods at the edge of a large swamp, Bear Rock has been used as a boundary marker for at least 200 years. Even today it marks the borders of the Kinnelon and Montville boroughs. Although it is difficult and even dangerous to scale, there are some very old surveying markers found near its highest points.