Rock Slide

In May, a 10,000-ton piece of rock broke off the nearly vertical face of the Palisades in Alpine, NJ, and came crashing down. Yesterday evening, we cruised by in the Commodore’s boat.

It obviously hasn’t taken long for some plant life to return. The Palisades were preserved into a park in 1900 after being deforested and even mined for decades, so many of the trees here now are opportunistic and hardy. There are, for instance, many Paulownia. In some places, you wonder if there’s any soil at all, and marvel at the trees’ grip on the ruins of old slides.