Beneath the Palisades
A wall of hardened magma that was saved from dynamite
The story
You’ve come down to the Hudson. Above you rise the Palisades. About two hundred million years ago, as the supercontinent Pangaea broke apart, magma rose from deep in the earth. It cooled beneath soft sandstones and shales and hardened into diabase. Over time the soft rock eroded, and the diabase was left standing like a wall. It splits into vertical columns, which reminded people of a palisade, a fence of stakes. One Indigenous name for this area means “rocks that look like trees”; the town of Weehawken takes its name from it. The piles of rock below the cliffs are talus. Almost all of it has fallen in the twelve thousand years since the last glacier retreated. In the 1890s, the cliffs were blasted with dynamite: Carpenter Brothers’ Quarry in Fort Lee made crushed stone for roads and concrete. The New Jersey women’s clubs fought back. In 1900, New York and New Jersey formed a joint commission to save the cliffs. The banker J. P. Morgan gave money to close the Carpenter Brothers’ Quarry. Since 1983 the Palisades have been a National Natural Landmark.
Visiting
Carpenter’s Trail has blue markers, the Shore Trail white ones. From here, follow the white markers south toward the bridge. Restrooms are at Ross Dock Picnic Area, a little to the north, in the warm season.
On the trail
- The Palisades: Carpenter’s Loop — 2.8 miles (4.5 km), loop, about 1.5 h
Sources
- Palisades Interstate Park in New Jersey — Nature: diabase about 200 million years old, talus, a National Natural Landmark since 1983
- Palisades Interstate Park in New Jersey — History: Carpenter Brothers’ Quarry, the women’s clubs, the 1900 commission, J. P. Morgan
- Palisades Interstate Park in New Jersey — Trails & Hiking: Carpenter’s Loop (5.5 miles, 2.5 hours, can be shortened by about half), the Long Path and the Shore Trail, Carpenter’s Trail (320-foot climb), buses
- Palisades Interstate Park in New Jersey — Ross Dock Picnic Area: restrooms, boat launch, no public transportation to the riverfront
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