Perhaps the surest sign that I was hurtling toward imminent, unnecessary danger should have been my final Google search before I drove off into a brewing lightning storm in pursuit of a castle.
“What to do if you run into a black bear in New Jersey”
Four days earlier and 85 miles north, I was walking along the edge of a staggering stone cliff, wind rippling, a giant smile on my face as I looked out to the snow-covered mountains and the farmlands nearly 1,200 feet below. I’d arrived on the crown of Bonticou Crag — a high point in the Shawangunk Mountains, a bedrock ridge that runs from the New Jersey border up to the Catskills — via the scenic route, the less treacherous path.
There’s a certain serenity in crunching through the snow, no one else around aside from the stray hiker in the beautifully quiet woods. Trudging through the Mohonk Preserve, the hike began unremarkably — until I spotted the small red sign affixed to a tree.
At the top, inside a circle was a tiny rifle with a powerful scope below the word “Hunting” — a black line slashed through both.
SAFETY ZONE
_______________
NO HUNTING
or
GUNS
BEYOND THIS SIGN
Unbeknownst to me, I had just been walking through whatever the opposite is of a SAFETY ZONE, it turns out.
Around a bend in the trail, I suddenly saw the cliffs, stacked up on top of each other, emerging, seemingly, out of nowhere. This must be Bonticou Crag. The rock scramble.
Technically, the rock scramble was closed. I knew this before I arrived and had even confirmed it with the staffer at the trailhead parking lot. It was easy enough to understand. It was the middle of winter. There was snow and ice all around. This scramble must have led 100 feet into the sky — dozens of sharp boulders resting in a pile — leading to the top of the crag. The climb, from what I could see, was eventually all but vertical. The idea of ignoring the closure and attempting the scramble hadn’t even crossed my mind. Then, as I approached the foot of the rock, I realized people were doing just that. They were climbing the scramble. I paused for several minutes, weighing my options, allowing a pair of hikers to scramble up ahead of me, trial balloons, one could say.
I chose adventure.
Red paint markings led the way up the improbable path. The scramble was immediately scary, if not terribly difficult. As I climbed upward, I wondered what the hell I was doing. Why not just take the more circuitous footpath instead? And what exactly lay ahead? Because of the way the rocks had toppled down to their final resting places, it was impossible to see the entirety of the route, to know exactly what challenges lay between where I was and where I was hoping to end up.
I had made it 40 feet, maybe less than that, when I looked up and realized the absurd amount of climbing and danger staring back down at me. There was an especially troubling section near the top that looked nearly sheer. The next move required me to pull myself up the face of a slanted rock. Once I’d hauled myself up, I wasn’t confident I’d be able to lower myself back down. I’d be committed. The only way out would be up. I’d reached the point of no return.
So, I bailed.
I decided to retreat back down. This, too, entailed danger as the bottom portion of the scramble was incredibly icy. Back on the ground, I was disappointed not to have finished the scramble, not to have seen what lay between the summit and where I’d abandoned the climb.
That disappointment was largely washed away when shortly thereafter — having followed the footpath along the spine of the ridge to the high point of the crag — I looked down at how daunting the rock scramble would have been.
As I began the descent, I spotted the red markings indicating the scramble and went to investigate. I followed the trail and was soon laying on my chest, clinging to a rock that jutted out beyond the main wall, fully exposed. With a single hand, I pulled myself to the ledge to peer over, taking a quick video as I went, then hurried back to safety. I’d had enough of these cliffs.
That instinct for self-preservation, which had saved me from the potential dangers of Bonticou Crag — maybe breaking a leg and having to get helicoptered out — also guided me when, days later, I found myself chasing lightning in the wilds of northern New Jersey.
Stepping out of the car, I was surprised to find the rain had stopped. According to my iPhone, there was no lightning in the forecast until 2 p.m., which meant I had roughly 40 minutes to complete the 2.3-mile Van Slyke Castle Loop without having to worry about being smote by lightning. Just enough time to chance it.
I routinely type notes on my phone while I’m out hiking or running, but, on this occasion, for reasons that will become evident momentarily, I didn’t jot down anything until I had made it back to the safety of the car.
“That was fucking spooky,” was my initial observation once I was, literally, out of the woods.
It wasn’t so much the lightning I was worried about but rather the bears. Black bears — which at the moment are enjoying a veritable renaissance all across New Jersey — to be precise. The highly dexterous predators, which top out running at 30 mph, were spotted in all 21 counties in the state in 2022. In Passaic County, where I was currently running through the remote, unfamiliar woods — an impossibly heavy, incredibly creepy fog hanging all around — there were 186 incidents in 2022, up from 33 the year before. Too much time on AllTrails had convinced me that I was going to be at the center of incident No. 1 in 2023.
“We just saw bears,” a helpful hiker wrote, less than two months prior. “Please bring a whistle! It will save your life.”
I didn’t have a whistle.
A month before that, another group encountered a mother bear and two cubs — forcing the hikers to turn around. But, the AllTrailer insisted, “The bear was not interested in us…”
I was rattled. I was alone in the woods with this eerie fog everywhere, rain pattering against the leaves that covered the forest floor. Every black stump or rock could have been a bear. It was only a matter of when — not if — I’d encounter one.
Somewhere, hidden in the fog of Ramapo Mountain State Forest, lay the ruins of Van Slyke Castle. The trees have long since taken over what remains of the granite-stone mansion built around 1910. You can still see the tattered stone walls and beams of the structure and there’s an in-ground pool and water tower nearby.
The castle, as recounted in an article on Jersey’s Best, has endured an unfortunate history. The original builder, a stockbroker, died before the construction was even complete. While returning from a fishing trip, his chauffeur swerved to avoid a farmer driving a horse-drawn wagon and rolled the car into a ditch. The mansion, which was first known as Foxcroft and only later as Van Slyke, was eventually abandoned. In 1959, vandals broke in and burned it. These days, it’s a popular hiking destination that’s perfectly legal to explore.
I kept pushing forward, but I knew, at this rate, I was never going to make it to the castle. I emerged from the woods to find the trail turned onto a concrete road that I hoped would be better. Somehow, it was worse. The fog was so thick, so spooky, that I couldn’t see where the road led. It just disappeared — into some otherworldly abyss. I was concerned that if I followed it, I would emerge on the other side in some alternate dimension. Up ahead to my left, something white flashed through the bushes. Not a black bear, obviously, I reasoned, But what the hell was that? I’d seen enough. I started backing up along the road — not wanting to miss the white blur should it pop back into sight. There was no chance I was plunging any further into that fog. The castle would have to wait.
Before heading into the forest, my grand, absurdly ambitious vision had been to make it to the castle (avoiding all lightning and bears) before driving over to Allendale where my dad grew up to enjoy lunch. Decades prior, when I was just a kid, I recall my grandpa — in his unrelenting deadpan — insisting much to my puzzlement and dismay that we were going to eat dinner in a barn. I was panicked until I learned the supposed barn was actually the Allendale Bar & Grill.
Near the front door is a small wooden shield that would fit right in on the side of a delightful medieval tavern. AB&G is written in gold script. At the top: Victuals [and] Grog.
It’s anything but a barn.
A 1993 profile of Allendale in The New York Times called it, “The best known commercial establishment in the borough…”
Founded in 1935, the burger-and-beer spot, which claims Babe Ruth as an early (and often) patron was originally part of the old Allendale Hotel.
“Known to locals as the AB&G, it draws a lunch crowd of corporate executives from around Bergen County.”
I don’t know about the executive part, but the place was noticeably crowded at 2:30 p.m. on a Tuesday when I walked up to the bar and grabbed a seat. The burger — topped with bacon, crispy onions and other accouterments — was as delicious as ever. And infinitely preferable to a potential encounter with a bear.