Maple Falls

Hard to get to and far from any place to park, South Mountain Reservation’s Maple Falls is a lot less popular than its cousin Hemlock Falls.

Fed by a spring up the hill, the flow of water is also less, making it a less romantic destination. But the quiet and solitude help to make up for it. As you approach, you can see signs that this area of the Reservation was once more well-tended. Here’s a footer for one of several bridges along the way, bridges that fell into disrepair, like ruins of some previous civilization.

My next visit is going to involve going upstream from here to find the headwaters, such as they are. By the looks of it, getting there is going to be easier than getting to the bottom, as you’ll see below.

Where the main trail intersects is a series of shallow rapids over the crystalline volcanic rock that makes up South Mountain. Even during this recent dry spell the areas around these spring-fed rivulets remain green with mosses and ferns.

As you work your way down, the channel is cut severely into the surrounding rock.

This is the south face of the ravine.

Here we’re nearing the edge, looking towards the drop.

And even closer. This is about as close as I cared to go with my camera stuff, tripod and faithful dog. She’s proven to be a lot more surefooted than I am (she does have four of them to my two), but it still makes me nervous. I have this funny fear of heights: I’m not afraid to be near the edge, but I can’t stand watching others there.

The following day I headed out to the Millburn approach to see how close I could get to the bottom. My son tells me they’ve seen that stretch from the trail, but that it was so far up they never bothered exploring. Well… not only that, but a brutal climb as well. The lower stretch is littered with boulders and fallen trees, no flat ground to stand on anywhere. To get there was to pick my way across a hundred yards or more going from rock to rock.

Large escarpments of rock jut out from the more-eroded northern face.

At the very end, it trickles down into the mighty Rahway river.

The next chapter in this saga might involve more water, since it rained yesterday!