22 November 2012 - Thankful for Trailblazers

Look for the white blaze that marks the trail

["Twilight on the Trail" - I prefer the version recorded by Perry Como]

So I am have now moved back to the United States and more blogs will follow on that experience.  But it's Thanksgiving, so I thought I'd take a quick moment to write about one of the many things I am thankful for this year while also covering one of the many things I love about my new state, New Jersey.

This is the first Thanksgiving I've been able to celebrate in four years due to my location in Germany.  I've been traveling so much that I haven't had a chance to really settle down or take more than the four days of vacation I'd eked out before I moved here.  So I decided to take the week off and hunker down in New Jersey and just rest.  Okay, and do some "retail therapy" with a friend who was visiting most of this week.

So in that vein, today I slept in a bit and then headed out to explore a bit of New Jersey.  I bought a book of day hikes for northeast New Jersey, so I randomly chose the hike for Monks Mountain which has some scenic overlooks on the Monksville Reservoir.  This is essentially adjacent to the Long Pond Ironworks Historic Site, which was created by a German immigrant, Peter Hasenclever, in the mid-1700s to take advantage of the power created by the Wanaque River and the availability of iron ore due to numerous mines in the area.  Hasenclever is said to have "imported" 500 European workers to work in the plant and to build the related infrastructure needed.  Apparently the iron works were used during the Civil War to make weapons for the Union army.  Unclear whether it also was used to make weapons or other things for the Revolutionary War as it was founded prior to 1776.

View of the reservoir and dam from the trail

What's more interesting to me, though, is what lies beneath the Monksville Reservoir.  In a word, "Monksville."  While some buildings were moved, the remainder were allowed to be flooded to make the reservoir possible.  I can't seem to find much information about this online, so I assume this isn't the same case of flooding of a town that we studied in law school and which I think took place somewhere in the 1940s or 1950s, but the pictures are kind of burned into my brain (alas, my law books are in storage in Chicago).  There is some mention than that at some point Jacques Cousteau examined the underwater town through the use of a submarine.  Further, in recent years, apparently the water level dropped far enough that some chimneys of the buildings became visible.  (See http://abandonedplaces.livejournal.com/1020767.html )

But back to Thanksgiving (other than being thankful that my hometown was not flooded to make room for a reservoir).  I parked at one of the boat launch parking lots and followed the Monks Mountain trail for a nice circle loop of just under three miles.  It was a good trail - generally narrow, some steep climbs, rocks to keep your eyes out for and mostly buried under a thick carpet of leaves so you couldn't see what was below and may require adjustment on your part - and full of twists and turns.  I was really glad that the trail was well marked with white blazes approximately every 30 feet or so, but also that my hiking guide suggested some additional things to see - like the outcropping where I had my lunch of cold roasted chicken (not quite turkey on Thanksgiving, but close enough for me).

Note white blaze and slight change in course required

And that's when I finally realized the literal meaning of a "trail blazer" - someone who not only has found the way, but has taken the time to mark it so that others can follow, too.  Others come by later to write trail guides to point out minor additional information that is helpful, but they are following in the paths of others.  And every once in a while there are big changes to the trail for conditions that could not be anticipated by either - such as a bunch of trees downed by Superstorm Sandy - that require the person on the path at any one point in time to determine the path s/he will take.

Maybe I'm a little slow, but I'd always thought of trailblazers as those who were just forging ahead alone on the path.  I didn't really consider what they were doing for all who followed.  Both on the trail and in the figurative sense for those who I consider trailblazers personally and professionally.  And it reminds me of my responsibility when following such trailblazers to keep sharing with others the changing conditions of the trails so that they can make the journey as well.

Happy Thanksgiving!