This is the view from the southern end of Franklin Clove. looking back through the ravine toward Franklin Lake.

Always great to see blue skies in January.

The water you see drops to a trickle by summer.

The clove, by the way, might be the closest you'll come to a "Last of the Mohicans" setting this side of upstate New York.  (Lenape native Americans wintered here 500 years ago.)

You can read more High Mountain posts here.

On a recent visit to the Mohonk Preserve, I happened upon a reproduction Lenape Longhouse, pictured above.

I share the photos because an extended family of Lenape(s) is said to have lived in a similar longhouse in Franklin Clove in what is now High Mountain Park Preserve.

The Lenape(s) used the clove's steep walls to protect them from the winds. They ice-fished in what is now Franklin Lake. And they got water in what is now called Buttermilk Falls.

In addition, their predecessors/ancestors lived in at least one rock shelter next to the clove.

I learned this from the late Jim Longo, Franklin Lakes historian and all-around good guy. (Jim's video about the Clove and the Lenape is featured below.) 

An old map featuring the falls and lake is at right. The clove would be at the bottom of the map. The line in the map is the border of Passaic and Bergen counties.

(The preserve is owned by Wayne Township, The Nature Conservancy and the New Jersey Natural Lands Trust.)

You can learn more about High Mountain here.

You can watch a recording of my High Mountain Zoom talk for The Nature Conservancy here.

The Nature Conservancy's web page about High Mountain (with that cool drone aerial footage) is here.

You can read my comprehensive article about High Mountain here.

You can read about my favorite High Mountain hike here.

Aerial photo to the right is of the Clove and Franklin Lake (thanks to LightHawk for their help!).

You can download a High Mountain trail map here:

Download High-mountain-park-nature-preserve-trail-map

The late Franklin Lakes historian Jim Longo's video about Franklin Clove is below.

On Monday, I asked:

Near a stream by the Red Trail at the High Mountain Park Preserve, I saw several rocks with small holes in them.

Anyone know what's going on?

William Paterson University Geology Professor Martin Becker writes:

The rock does not appear to be a vesicular or amygdaloidal basalt.

It is also more rounded and not angular as one would expect from the local Preakness Basalt Formation.

The surface color is not a good match either for weathered basalt.  

I think it is a glacial erratic and piece of the Oriskany Sandstone of New York State and what you are looking at are one of two things:

a) non-quartz minerals that have chemically and physically eroded away leaving behind the “holes”

b) remains of ichnofossils in the form of “holes” or “tubes.”  

Prof. Becker asked me to do a test on the rock. Will try to do so...  (Thanks, Prof. Becker!)