BACKROADS • FEBRUARY 2022
Page 10
Morton’s BMW Motorcycles presents Dr. Seymour O’Life’s
MYSTERIOUS AMERICA
In Search of Big Red Eye • Part 1 Despite so many stories spreading the falsehood of New Jersey being an over-populated state filled with billowing smokestacks, old industrial areas, sprawling cities, and affluent suburbs, the truth is that the overwhelming majority of the state’s population lives in a roughly-defined swath of land, basically stretching between Philadelphia and New York City. But, not many of them are aware that over 40 percent of the state’s land is either protected from development or classified as “rural/agrarian.” That’s right – a big part of New Jersey is either forest or farmland. Take a good ride along the tiny backroads of the Garden State there are many areas without too much in the way of human traffic to be seen. One such part is the northwest corner of New Jersey – the same region Backroads Central is found. Backing up this part of the state, also known as the Skylands Region is a small mountain range that runs along the eastern side of the Delaware River. The Kittatinny Ridge, a section of high cliff faces and large, rolling hills and valleys traversing the northwest part of the state, is one such area.
Unlike the Alps and the Andes, relatively young in Earth geology time, this mountain is ancient and big. The name Kittatinny comes from a Lenape Native American word meaning “endless hill” or “great mountain.” Indeed it is as the actual ridge is cut through by the Delaware River at the Water Gap. Sunrise and High Point Mountains are all part of this ridge, which is composed mainly of quartz. The Shawangunks, north in New York, are also part of this long mountain that we see stretches into three separate states. Although the ridge is fairly even elevation-wise there are a few gaps to be found. One being Culver’s Gap. Culver’s Gap was a route used by Paleo Indians and the Lenape Native Americans to go through the mountain to trade and hunt. While touring the Pocono Indian Museum, a mu-
