Nature Done Wright

  Pyramid Mountain Natural Historic Area is in Kinnelon, less than 10 minutes from the Boonton exit on Route 287.
  I covered the first hike of the new year there for The Record today, and found it to be a great cabin-fever-fighting activity for families. The story is here.
   It was the first nature outing I have been on with three dogs and seven fairly young children.

   The kids, with their energy and curiosity, were almost as much fun as the hike itself — a three-mile trip to Tripod Rock.
   One young boy, Clayton, was a naturalist in the making, zipping around the visitors’ center and pointing out feathers and other items noteworthy mostly to children.
   He announced that he had gone on a bird walk with his father the weekend before at the Great Swamp, where he had seen many birds, including a "white-capped Chickapee."
   
Alas, we saw no birds on the two-hour-plus hike, although our guide, staff naturalist Douglas Vorolieff, thought he heard a great horned owl as we trekked down the ridge.
   Vorolieff also stopped and offered nature tips along the way — holding up a deer skull he found, for example, and explaining that squirrels and chipmunks would nibble on it to get calcium.
   During one of his many brief but informative talks, one little boy kept poking a young tree with his walking stick, and Vorolieff gently advised everyone that they should be kind to nature, and explained how it provided a home and food for all the wildlife we love.
   As for Tripod Rock itself, it was a big boulder sitting on three smaller rocks — part of the major mischief wrought by the last Ice Age.

  I noticed a sign in the visitors’ center that said that a slightly shorter version of the Tripod Rock hike would burn off 650 calories.

   After I finished the hike, I thought, "Only 650 calories? Is that all?"
   Then I realized that any calories lost along the way were just a  bonus. For information on Pyramid Mountain, click here.