Hoover’s romantic sunset destination and its history
By Syd Pulliam
Lover’s Leap is poetry in its truest form: nature. No, really – you can find the poetry of Lord Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” engraved on a boulder as you walk up to the Leap itself.
“To sit on the rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell, to slowly trace the forest’s shady scene where things that own not man’s dominion dwell, and mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been.”
These words are a replica of those carved by early Jefferson County settler Thomas W. Farrar in 1827. They came from the heart of a freshly married man ready for the adventure of true love.
More recent carvings like the initials of lovers who have come and gone now mimic Farrar’s – and although they are much more simple, they convey the same passion as a newly wedded man gazing upon a beautiful view with a beautiful woman.
It truly seems to feel like Lover’s Leap radiates love. Sunsets at the lookout on Shades Crest Road in the Bluff Park neighborhood are magical – the sky glows with the fading of blushing light and dresses everything that falls beneath it in a dimly lit splendor.
That’s the appeal of a place like Lover’s Leap. People find solace here for a variety of reasons: some come seeking action by rappelling down the cliff walls. Some come to serenade and woo a girl on a first date. Some come for a reunion picnic with a long-distance lover.
The Leap offers its beauty up in any way that humans will take it.