Request

To help address increasing stewardship needs of the Appalachian Trail corridor lands between High Point and Wawayanda State Parks in New Jersey, the NY-NJ Trail Conference has submitted a proposal to NJ Governor Whitman asking her to designate the AT corridor lands as a new state park unit. This would establish a small park staff (a superintendent, a maintenance workers, probably a park ranger) whose focus would be just these AT lands.

We ask that Trail Conference members, friends, and those who support the Appalachian Trail in general help us by writing a brief letter of support to Governor Whitman. State officials are reviewing state park stewardship needs right now, to make recommendations for the future. So your letter of support is especially needed this month!

The following is a copy of the letter the Trail Conference sent, and contains all the relevant information for you.

THANK YOU for any support you can give to this worthwhile proposal of the NY-NJ Trail Conference

Letter to Whitman

November 1, 2000
Christine Todd Whitman
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 001
Trenton, NJ 08625

RE: Great Valley of the Appalachians State Park: A Proposal

Dear Governor Whitman,

The New York-New Jersey Trail Conference recently received a copy of your letter to Maureen Ogden asking that the Garden State Preservation Trust research and make recommendations on projected public land stewardship and facility needs. The Trail Conference would like to bring attention to the increasing stewardship demands on State-owned Appalachian Trail lands. We respectfully request the designation of a new state park - lands already entirely in State ownership - that would be the first state park anywhere devoted exclusively to the management of a large section of the Appalachian Trail.

A Great Valley of the Appalachians State Park, encompassing the publicly-owned, 22- mile route of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail (AT) across Sussex County, would be a magnificent public greenway filled with unique natural features and tremendous outdoor recreation opportunities in addition to its chief focus, the AT. A full listing of the greenway’s features are on the following page(s).

The AT corridor between Routes 519 and 94 has been jointly managed by High Point and Wawayanda state parks since 1982, when New Jersey became the first state to completely protect its portion of the Appalachian Trail by acquiring public lands. This AT greenway now includes more than 2,310 acres of public land (1,611 acres owned by New Jersey, and 705 acres of federal lands managed by the N.J. State Park Service under a cooperative agreement), with another 500 acres proposed and/or about to close. This makes the AT corridor more than twice the size of Cheesequake State Park, and larger than Kittatinny Valley State Park for example.

As a linear greenway with 50 miles of unguarded boundary, the AT corridor is especially vulnerable to illegal trail uses and intrusions. Yet there is no park superintendent nor park staff exclusively devoted to it. Park rangers can only patrol these lands sporadically, creating enforcement voids. Managing increasing AT corridor acreage, and responding to stewardship needs, are secondary priorities for the limited staffs at High Point and Wawayanda parks. Right now, this section of the AT corridor is most directly supervised by the NY-NJ Trail Conference’s AT volunteers, and, in the summertime, by educator/ridge runners.

The designation of a new state park unit with its own superintendent and staff in this region would provide better management of a greenway that has stretched beyond the manpower and material resources of High Point and Wawayanda State Parks while providing an exceptional new focus for outdoor recreation in northwestern New Jersey.

Thank you for your consideration of this proposal.

Sincerely,

Gary Haugland
President
GH/pc

cc: Maureen Ogden, Garden State Preservation Trust Christopher Daggett, Garden State Preservation Trust Robert Shinn, Commissioner, Dept. of Environmental Protection

Proposal

Great Valley of the Appalachians State Park: A Proposal for Outdoor Recreation and Natural Resource Protection

Similar in design to the Delaware and Raritan Canal, and Kittatinny Valley, state parks, Great Valley of the Appalachians State Park would provide a wealth of natural and cultural resources in a magnificent public recreation corridor connecting the Highlands and Ridge and Valley provinces.

These lands, acquired by the Green Acres program between 1970s-1990s and under the Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Parks and Forestry jurisdiction, traverse the entire Great Valley (a geographic feature that stretches from Alabama to Lake Champlain). The Great Valley is bounded by tall stony ridges and encompasses rolling hills, unique limestone karst topography and picturesque farmlands.

The new state park’s western boundary would be formed by Route 519, where the Appalachian Trail leaves High Point State Park. Its eastern boundary would be either at Route 94 in Vernon, or at Barrett Road (several miles east of Route 94) within Wawayanda State Park.

The Great Valley of the Appalachians State Park would offer the following:

Hiking Trails

• Appalachian Trail: Twenty-two miles of the Appalachian Trail cross the Great Valley, providing some of the finest lookouts in all New Jersey. The view from Pinwheel’s Vista, for example, reaches from the Catskills to High Point Monument and nearly to the Delaware Water Gap. The fine view from Wolfpit Hill looks out over vast tracks of farmland as well as the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge.
• Loop Trails: The Appalachian Trail corridor widens significantly at several spots, and is traversed by numerous old woods roads, providing the opportunity to create loop trails. For example, the 400-acre Banks Pond tract has two freshwater lakes where great blue heron can regularly be seen. The 92-acre John Hill tract near the AT Pochuck Creek Suspension Bridge and Boardwalk also has good potential for loop trails, as does the Barrett Farm area offering sweeping pastoral views north into New York state.
• Handicapped Access: The Pochuck Creek Suspension Bridge and Boardwalk is the largest volunteer/state/federal partnership construction project ever attempted on the Appalachian Trail. The 110-foot suspension bridge and approximately 3,000 feet of raised boardwalk (about 1,700 feet already finished) will, when completed in 2001-02, make this a showcase Appalachian Trail section. The treadway’s smooth surface and lack of grade, and its extraordinary wetland birding (Northern harriers, barred owls, and Cooper’s hawks) make this a perfect choice for nature study by seniors, youngsters, and the mobility-impaired. In fact, wide spots in the boardwalk were specifically designed with nature study groups and wheelchair turnarounds in-mind.

Historical Resources and Interpretation

• The Ring Quarry Prehistoric Mining District: This archeological site, nominated as a NJ state Historic Landmark, is within the AT corridor. It includes what is considered to be the most valuable archeological site on the entire 2,100 mile Appalachian Trail: a large chert quarry mined for the making of stone tools by Native Americans for 4,000 years before the arrival of European settlers. As such, this site pose enforcement challenges to prevent looting. The Ring Quarry site has tremendous potential for cultural interpretation and historic education.
• Barrett Farm: This 19th-century subsistence farm could be a premier living history working farm, modeled on Groseclose Farm on the Appalachian Trail in southern Virginia. Part of the Barrett Farm site is already leased to the Vernon Historical Society, which runs a small museum next to the AT. Again, a prime opportunity for natural and cultural history interpretive trails and historic education for local school groups and families.

Canoeing - other outdoor recreation

• Pochuck Creek, Wawayanda Creek, Black Creek, and Wallkill River System: An exceptional network of interconnected streams offers some of northern New Jerseys finest canoeing. This untapped resource could become a recreational focus of the newly designated park unit. The opportunity for canoe liveries would enhance local business. Total canoe-able mileage (if combined with streams just across the New York border) equals more than 30 miles.

Ecological Diversity

• Unusual Geology: Great Valley of the Appalachians State Park would allow for hands-on management of rare geological features, including the dolomite limestone outcrops of Vernon Valley (a former seabed), the billion year-old gneiss and granite of Pochuck Mountain and the Wawayanda Escarpment (some of the oldest rock in the entire Appalachians). It would also protect the so-called Drowned Lands of the Wallkill and Vernon Valleys (lowlands which just 12,000 years ago formed the bottom of a vast glacial lake).
• Threatened and Endangered Species: The wetlands of the Wallkill Valley, limestone outcrops in Vernon Valley, and the Wawayanda Escarpment boast unusual plants and animals, including Northern harriers, great blue heron, bobolink, barred owls, Cooper’s hawks, bog turtles, rattlesnake, yellow oak, climbing fumatory, yellow giant hysop, Virginia snakeroot, stiff gentian, and American fly honeysuckle. Such a valuable legacy deserves close watching, especially in a narrow corridor where disturbance is always close at hand.
• Natural Wildlife Corridor: Some of the newest thinking in landscape ecology emphasizes the value of wildland corridors, providing connectivity between large blocks of park land. Such linkages allow large mammals, such as bear, bobcat and deer, to widen their range. It allows all plants and animals to freely migrate, mixing their gene pools and maintaining the highest possible biodiversity. Great Valley of the Appalachians State Park has the potential to serve as just such a green corridor, linking the New Jersey Highlands with the Kittatinny Ridge, and connecting the 14,000 acres of High Point State Park with the 13,500 acres of Wawayanda State Park.