August 20 - 27

Summer is starting to fade and Labor Day is on the horizon. Don't be intimidated! Spread your wings and reach for the Skylands!

---

Founding Farmers

The Highlands Coalition has assembled two concurrent exhibits of paintings, photographs, ceramics, mixed and more, featuring the rich agricultural heritage of the New Jersey Highlands..

Farming has always been vital to the Highlands economy, intrinsic to the Highlands  culture and identity and a defining feature of the Highlands landscape. Many farmers have had to adapt to changing economic and community demands. The survivors have diversified their product, and many have ventured into agritourism in order to provide for their families. For tomato fanatics, hybrid and heirlooms are ready to sample at this Wednesday's tasting (Aug. 26.)

---

Rock A Bye Baby

The Rockaway Valley Railroad was about 25 miles long and lasted for about 25 years. It was constructed primarily to ship peaches, and although it also saw other freight and passenger traffic, orchard owners were responsible for the railroad's commencement in 1888. The orchards have passed their prime, but The Little Railroad That Couldn't lives on, if only for hikers, cyclists and patrons of local lore. Take a walk and imagine the slow moving locomotive rocking back and forth on its way through the countryside.

---

Ferrytales

River frontage at what is now Worthington State park has always been a popular place.

Situated along the river, within the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, Worthington State Forest comprises almost 6,000 acres extending about seven miles along the Kittatinny Ridge. If you visit this popular destination, a little historical background will make your stay even more enjoyable.

---

Power Plants

For those in the know (and it's important that you know before you pick) the forests and fields of Northwest Jersey offer a visitor much more than a walk in the park. They are a veritable garden; Nature's garden of edible and medicinal plants. From the lowliest ground creeper to towering trees, each plant has some nutritional, chemical, edible properties, for better or worse. Much more...

---

Summer Surprise

I saw a flash of white as the maw of a very big trout opened and then closed around the helpless fly. I could feel the power of that fish when I pulled back on the bamboo rod. And then there was nothing. When I reeled in my line, I found that my fly was gone.

---

Straight Ahead

August 13 - 20

Paths of Stories

The Morris Canal always was a good place for a stroll. The canal's 102-mile meander across northern New Jersey, from Phillipsburg to Jersey City, was walked by every mule driver for every team that pulled a canal boat from 1831 to 1924. However, the canal's towpath also served as a route for recreational rambles during its years of operation.
Today, the Morris Canal Greenway is a reassembly of many segments along that route. Partners that include, among others, the Canal Society of New Jersey and the Warren County Dept. of Land Preservation, have gone to great lengths to document the fascinating stories along the way. Take a summer stroll!

---

The Long Way Home

See the Highlands Canal Boat recovery exhibit at Waterloo!

Waterloo Village, in Byram Township, was approximately half-way along the Morris Canal's 102-mile journey across the state, from Phillipsburg to Jersey City, and had all the components necessary to become a thriving canal town. Today, Waterloo Village is stuffed with stories -- one of the most remarkable is about the recovery of a lost Morris Canal boat which is now on display on Saturdays through October. The Canal Museum is also open along with the Waterloo gristmill and visitor’s center, 10am - 4pm (Free). For more information, click or call 973-292-2755.

---

Canal Days at Bird's Lock

The restoration of Bird's Lock in Wharton.

Among the shreds of Morris Canal that have somehow avoided destruction is a quarter-mile watered stretch that leads to Lock 2 East in Wharton’s Hugh Force Park. Of all stretches of walkable canal prism and towpath, or associated sites along the Morris Canal Greenway, this is the only operating lock. The crumbled remains of the lock tender’s house — occupied since the 1860s by generations of the Bird family, for whom the lock became known and named, have been rebuilt as well. More...

---

The Internal Triangle

The house at 45 Macculloch Avenue in Morristown. Photo by Stan Freeny.

In 1810, George Macculloch, best remembered as the Father of the Morris Canal, began construction of his Federal-style mansion over an existing farmhouse on 26 acres at what is now 45 Macculloch Avenue in Morristown. In 1950, W. Parsons Todd began transforming the gracious old home into his vision of a historical museum serving the community. Today, Macculloch Hall Historical Museum fulfills three missions: to interpret the history of the Macculloch-Miller family, preserve and share W. Parsons Todd’s extensive collections, and display many works by renowned 19th-century illustrator Thomas Nast.

---

Good Bets

August 6 - 13

The sultry days of mid to late summer are long and lazy. Busy, demanding days are not far ahead; so spend some quality time finding out the best ways to do nothing but relax.

---

Happy Feet

If you can't sit still, the confluence of water and earth at the Delaware Water Gap promises hikers a bounty of blissful steps through exquisite terrain. The famous notch that characterizes Warren County's western skyline is where the Kittatinny Mountains have given way to eons of gentle persuasion by the Delaware River, creating one of the most majestic of New Jersey's natural features between Mount Tammany and Mount Minsi in Pennsylvania.

---

On The Banks Of The Wild Six

When the Jersey sky hangs white in summer haze, head to the woods at Six Mile Run in Franklin Township, Somerset County. The 3,037-acre property takes off from the Millstone River and winds its way through forest, a myriad of trails and habitats alongside this quiet stream are made for easy—long or short—relaxing walks.

---

Three Hundred Years of Solitude

The Solitude House stands as a testament to our collective history as a new nation, as well as testament to all those who persevered in the face of overwhelming odds to succeed.

The sign, “Settled in 1700”, which welcomes those who pass through High Bridge, implies a long abiding heritage: a story of the longest continually operating iron and steel company in United States and the workers who helped shape our country's history and destiny. Read about the Union Forge and walk the Taylor Steelworkers Historic Greenway...

---

Lunkers Alive!

Many of our rivers and streams, seasonally stocked with trout, also support year-round resident populations of smallmouth bass. The Paulinskill, Flatbrook Wallkill, Pequest, Musconetcong, and others are all destinations for smallmouth fishers. Fly fishing for bass in the summer is a great way to get on the water when it gets too hot for trout. Watching a bass explode on your popper is one of the most exhilarating feelings in freshwater fly fishing.

---

Easy Living

July 30 - August 5

Spread your wings and reach for the Skylands this and every week this summer. Don't wait; the days are racing away!

---

Skylands By Saddle

On the Paulins Kill Valley Trail

In a land crisscrossed by interstates, punctuated with traffic lights, and clogged with cars, it’s easy to overlook how much northwestern New Jersey territory you can still cover on a horse. Through warm summer months and into fall, you can explore rivers, streams, fields, and hills and enjoy remote views and vistas—all from the saddle. Across the Skylands region, a horse can take you where no car can—faster and sometimes farther afield than your own two feet. Exercise? Certainly. But also the pleasure of working with a 1,000-pound companion who can handle the footwork. Saddle up!

---

Straight and Narrow

Trestle bridge over Ken Lockwood Gorge

Rail trails are a legacy of some of the many railroads that once thrived in northwestern New Jersey in an era when trains had names, each with its own character and personality. You don't need a whole lot of hiking know-how or aerobic virility to enjoy a rail trail.
While Hunterdon County's system of rails was not as intricate as farther north, where mining was more prevalent, the county was home to many spur lines used to transport passengers and products to charming villages and hamlets. Exercise for the body and mind!

---

Watershed Moments

The Pequest flows under the bridge to Buttzville in quieter times

Geologic record helps understand the human history and impacts of settlement and lifestyles in each of our watersheds, which take on regional characteristics of their own, enhanced by a heaping portion of openly accessible recreation facilities.
The Pequest River begins just south of Newton and flows thirty-two miles to Belvidere where it empties into the Delaware River. In Warren County, it passes near Allamuchy State Park, Jenny Jump State Forest, Pequest Wildlife Management Area, and the Beaver Brook Wildlife Management Area. The watershed includes a wealth of remnants from Warren County’s agricultural and industrial heritage. Follow the river!

---

Midnight Moonlight

Craters of the moon, photographed from 238,855 miles away at the UACNJ by Wolfgang Damm, NWJAA

What better way to cool off after a hot summer day than to gaze at the moon and stars? The United Astronomy Clubs of New Jersey (UACNJ) facilities in Jenny Jump State Forest, near Hope in Warren County, are 1,100 feet above sea level, one of the few dark sky locations left in the state. On Saturday evenings the facility offers series of program presentations. Audience size is limited and reservations are advisable.
And at Voorhees State Park in Glen Gardner, the New Jersey Astronomical Association has installed a 26-inch Newtonian reflector telescope, one of the largest privately owned telescopes in New Jersey. There's Saturday night stargazing from 8:30-10pm and Sunday afternoon solar viewing, 2-5pm.

---

Planet Jersey

The tulip tree silkmoth boasts a wingspan up to 4 1/4 inches. The females lay rows of eggs on tulip trees. Adults do not eat and live only a week or so.

Who doesn’t enjoy looking at a beautiful butterfly as it flutters by and lands on a pretty flower? Maybe you have a butterfly garden that allows you the pleasure of sneaking in for a closer look at these fragile creatures all day long. But what if you could double your viewing pleasure? That’s right, day and night!

---

Easy Living

July 15 - 22

Wet and Wild

The Pequannock Watershed, which weaves through and around Newfoundland and West Milford, has been called one of the New Jersey’s last wilderness areas. There are miles of trails up, down, and around a mini-range of mountains, through woods, past rocky streams, still lakes and reservoirs, with glimpses of the ruins of a stone castle and abandoned iron mines, all framed by dramatic shears, sliced by the Wisconsin Glacier ages ago. Get familiar this summer!

Long lazy days of summer seem like they'll last forever. Don't be fooled, make a splash while you can! Stay tuned to our Day Trip Map for good ideas for a scenic drive! For the more aerobically inclined, the Outdoor Map shows the way to go, or choose among dozens of natural attractions or outdoor activities suggested on our website. Choose your own adventure!

---

Ye Olde Lake

A summer destination for generations past, Lake Hopatcong is central to the New Jersey Skylands, not only geographically, but also to the many levels and facets of the region's character. Its name derived from the language of the people who first inhabited these fertile grounds along the Minisink Trail, Hopatcong's waters reflect Northwest New Jersey's prolific history of transportation, industry and recreation.

---

Path to Discovery

Strolling along the Paulins Kill Valley Trail is a fine way to spend a summer day. With access points and parking spaces in many places along this 27-mile soft dirt-cinder path, you can stroll at leisure or pick up the pace as you wish. You can also explore off trail and discover hidden gems of nature, history and the early culture of coal, commerce and railroads. Managed by Kittatinny Valley State Park, the trail is flat, easy and comfortable for walkers, bicyclists, dog-sledders and horse-back riders.

---

The Other Asbury

As the first American bishop, Francis Asbury set the cornerstone for the United Methodist Church in 1796.

The Musconetcong River runs forty-two miles from Lake Hopatcong to the Delaware River. But in that brief distance, the river and its valley describe, for better or worse, the evolution of modern American culture in the advance of agriculture, transportation and industry. Exploration of the valley is never short on delightful surprises, and deserves to be on your summer itinerary. The historic village of Asbury is a good place to begin.

---

Summer Stage

The Wedding Singer at Centenary University in Hackettstown on Saturday.

Based on the hit film starring Adam Sandler, The Wedding Singer holds its final performances at Centenary Stage Company's Summerfest this week (July 15, 16, 17, 18, 19). The play transports audiences back to the outrageous world of the 1980s, where Robbie Hart is the life of every party – until his own fiancée leaves him at the altar.
Next Saturday, July 25, the most accurate tribute to the iconic Led Zeppelin comes to Hackettstown as Four Sticks plays through all the hits the way Jimmy and the boys did - with only four members playing multiple instruments.
Then ,running July 30 - August 9, Broadway veteran John Leone, an original cast member of Jersey Boys, will lead the cast of Centenary Stage Company's production of Maltby & Shire's Closer Than Ever, the finale of the theater's 2026 Summerfest season.
Summerfest performances take place at Centenary University's Lackland Center, 715 Grand Ave, Hackettstown. Call 908/979-0900 or click for tickets.

---

Easy Living

July 8 - 15

The temperature has reached into the nineties, and it’s not yet noon. My fly rods remain in their tubes, my flies in their sleeves. It is much too hot to play tag with the fish of Bonnie Brook, too hot to do much of anything.

Temperature's rising, but don't let it slow you down! Take advantage of a calendar sizzling with intriguing things for you and your family to enjoy. Don't wait; the summer days are melting away!

---

Take a Float on the Wild Side!

Heading upstream through the Refuge from Bassetts Bridge, the Wallkill is a corridor of beauty.

The Wallkill River shares with great rivers like the Nile and the Rhine the peculiarity of northward flow. From out of Lake Mohawk, it spills over a dam then becomes a stream, bubbling and rushing fast, seeming most determined to be free.

---

Tutelage at the Tiller

The Sunfish bucked and cavorted at the ramp, looking about as quiet as a rodeo horse and as sturdy as the balsa wood models my brother made as a boy. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that the boat was little more than a dinghy with a sail. Wind blew waves across the ramp. Cold crept in under the personal flotation device as vestiges of ancient sailing lessons crossed my brain. My first mistake: raising the sail at the launch ramp. The second: imagining I could do this alone. Hop aboard!

---

Paradise Lost, And Found

A mile-and-a-half north of Millbrook Village in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, you can turn off Old Mine Road and head straight uphill towards the top of the Kittatinny Ridge. Just below the ridge are a series of small lakes that define a haven for those looking for a place to get lost wandering through mountainside forest full of wildlife and open meadows surrounding crystal clear waters. But, the pristine aura at Blue Mountain Lakes yields scant evidence of the ambitious development for which it was created. More...

---

The Nature of Preservation

The Schiff Nature Preserve in Mendham Township encompasses over 300 acres in a historic river valley, and has a history as vast and expansive as its terrain. Knowing the stories of those who walked these trails before - from Native Americans, to Revolutionary War heroes, to Norman Rockwell and the Boy Scouts of America - will embellish your trip. And visitors can be confident in the stewardship at the preserve that will usher it into the future.

---

Planet Jersey

Red spotted purple (Donna Traylor)

Flying jewels they are sometimes called. Butterflies come in many sizes and colors, from delicately small and hard to spot, to Monarch orange and yellow bouncing about the garden for all to see. Once the weather starts to warm up and nectar plants begin to bloom, butterflies become more and more evident from woodlands to back-yard flower gardens.

---

Easy Living

July 2 - 8

Declarations!

You may have heard; it's the 250th anniversary of America's first crisis! And New Jersey lay at the heart, hosting General George Washington and the Continental Army for nearly half of the war. Strategically situated between the Continental Congress in Philadelphia and the British Army in New York—and linking New England with the American South—the state became know as the Crossroads of the American Revolution. Here, decisive American victories at Trenton, Princeton, and Monmouth shifted the course of the war. Here, the Continental Army endured the hardest winter of the century. At Nassau Hall at Princeton University, the Continental Congress convened in 1783. And in New Jersey, General George Washington issued his farewell orders to the Continental Army.

Celebrate the Fourth at Morristown National Historical Park with an interactive reading of the Declaration of Independence, toasts, and volley of musketry from Continental soldiers, followed by an open house at the Ford Mansion.

Morristown became home to America’s first National Historical Park in 1933. Visitors can find something of our national identity and solemn splendor in the historic structures and the woodland knolls where General George Washington and his army found refuge in the hard winter of 1779-1780.
After the last Patriot soldier left Morristown in 1782, it was almost one-hundred years until four men rescued the Ford Mansion from a dubious fate at auction. The decision to pool their funds and secure the building and grounds was the genesis of the Washington Association which became the principal caretaker of the property, only the third historic home to be preserved in the United States. Over the next fifty years the Association assembled a remarkable array of period artifacts, books and manuscripts that resides at the Washington Headquarters Museum.

---

Stars and Stripes

2026 marks the 132nd annual ceremony at the Middlebrook Encampment, a 20-acre park that commemorates the encampments of the Continental Army in 1777 and 1778-1779. It is here that the first American flag was unfurled, and where a 13-Star Betsy Ross flag flies continuously by special act of Congress. Bring lawn chairs and listen to patriotic music before the introduction of dignitaries, reading of the Declaration, Keynote Speaker, historical address, and Benediction. 10am. 1761 Middlebrook Rd. in Bridgewater.

---

Guardians

The restored Jacobus Vanderveer House, occupied by General Henry Knox through the summer of 1779, when Washington decided to move his primary camp north to Morristown

The Second Encampment at Middlebrook (1778-79) is remembered for the transformation of the American regulars into a disciplined fighting force. In the summer of 1966, armed with a machete, Cliff Sekel began hacking his way up and down Shley Mountain, in Bedminster, looking for hidden building foundations. The search went on for twenty weeks, over two summer vacations, until he finally found the outlines of a structure. It was part of the Pluckemin Cantonment, one of the great overlooked stories of the American Revolution.

---

Tory Stories

Moody's band via artificial imagination

During the Revolutionary War, not only Patriots maneuvered for control, but also Loyalists who remained faithful to the British government. James Moody was a wealthy Sussex County farmer turned fierce British Loyalist officer and spy. From a tucked-away limestone ledge at Big Muckshaw Pond near Newton--now known as Moody's Rock--he and his small band of followers hid between raids on local American Patriot forces and coordinated regional sabotage.
In the the rocky and mysterious Sourland Mountains, Hans Van Pelt, a pacifist who was persecuted because he refused to fight for either side, was forced to find shelter within the spaces of a massive rock formation later dubbed “Fort Hans”.
And soldiers fighting for the Crown evaded their Patriot pursuers as they made their way up to the top of Musconetcong Mountain to a small cave later called the Tory Den.

---

---

---

Great Stories

Visit Morristown National Historical Park, and learn about the life of a common soldier during the encampment at Jockey Hollow, where General Washington and the Continental Army survived through what would be the coldest winter on record. During the army's second winter at Morristown, General Washington lived and made his headquarters in a relatively new two-story house on the outskirts of town built by Jacob Ford, Jr. (above).

The year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of America's first crisis. New Jersey lay at the heart of the American Revolution, hosting General George Washington and the Continental Army for nearly half of the war. Strategically positioned between the Continental Congress in Philadelphia and the British Army in New York—and midway between New England and the American South—the state became the crossroads where Patriots, Loyalists, British forces, and Hessians maneuvered for control. Here, decisive American victories at Trenton, Princeton, and Monmouth shifted the course of the war. Here, the Continental Army endured the hardest winter of the century. At Nassau Hall at Princeton University, the Continental Congress convened in 1783. And in New Jersey, General George Washington issued his farewell orders to the Continental Army.
For many, winter is a season for reflection. The challenge of the season strips away pretense and invites deeper understanding. Prepare for a year filled with powerful stories from the Crossroads of the American Revolution.

 

---

---