2-April-99 Stokes State Forest

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Arlene's favorite place in the world is Stokes State Forest in the northwestern corner of New Jersey. She often talks about cabin 9, which her family used to rent for their summer vacation when she was a kid. We rarely have a day in New Jersey with enough open time to go up there, but we did today.

New Jersey takes an unfair bashing from people who only know the state from the Jersey Turnpike. The northwestern corner of the state, Sussex County, has beautiful rolling hills and farmland much like Vermont. We drove through Lafayette, not stopping at any of the numerous antique stores, and up Sunrise Mountain. The Appalachian Trail goes past the parking lot near the summit, and we parked and walked a couple of hundred yards along the trail to some good viewpoints. When have you seen vultures soaring below you? There were groups of four to eight of them circling over the side of the mountain, the circles drifting slowly parallel to the ridge. The woodpecker we saw along the trail was -- and I hesitate to say this because the name is so much of a joke -- a yellow-bellied sapsucker, with clean red and black marks around the face and a pale yellow breast that justified the name. Joel agreed that the animal tracks crossing the trail were probably made by deer.

The road came down off the mountain to Lake Ocquitunk, site of Cabin 9. The lake is horseshoe shaped, probably no more than 300 yards across altogether. Arlene was delighted to find that it still has a large population of newts, in spite of the number of them she caught when she was a kid. Besides the aquatic newts, there were many red efts, the almost mature form of those salamanders, walking through the woods apparently on their way to the water. As we walked around the cabin area, Arlene and Millie told a woman camper that they had spent their vacation in one of the cabins years ago, and the woman invited us in to see what the cabins look like now. They have indoor toilets! Pretty impressive. There was even one larger cabin which was handicapped accessible. Stokes seems to be at least as good as ever.