The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: July twenty-second, appreciating New Jersey's High Point.

If high point is not a concept you would normally associate with New Jersey, you have probably never visited the magnificent mountain range in the Garden State's northwest corner. Kittatinny Mountain, at 1800 feet, is its peak. When it was laid out in the 1920's, High Point State Park, which included the huge forest that surrounds the peak, became New Jersey's first state park.

The reality of High Point certainly contradicts any false notions of New Jersey as a wall to wall urban, industrialized place. The mountain's crisp, stony ridges are flanked with thick stands of oak, hemlock, cedar, and pine. Lush banks of rhododendron fringe cool, mountain lakes. Long hiking paths, including a section of the Appalachian Trail, wind through the park's forests. The scenic serpentine drive, with its stone guardrails that sweep to Kittatinny's summit in long, graceful arcs, is both a masterwork of architecture and a treat to drive.

At the road's end, you'll find the park's premier landmark, the 220-foot high granite obelisk which crowns the summit. Climbing the steps to its top is worth the effort. The reward: a 360-degree panorama stretching from Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains to the Catskills of New York. The park has several areas with multitudes of cabins and campsites for those so inclined.

This much is certain. Once you have had a chance to witness High Point's quiet beauty, you'll never think of New Jersey the same way again.

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