Lover's Leap

Lover's Leap (sometimes spelled as Lovers Leap), is a toponym given to a number of locations of varying height, usually isolated, with the risk of a fatal fall and the possibility of a deliberate jump. Legends of romantic tragedy are often associated with a Lovers' Leap.

Locations
The Lover's Leap at Hawk's Nest in Hawk's Nest State Park in the town of Ansted, West Virginia, USA, along the historic Midland Trail has a drop of 178 m (585 feet) from a high bluff overlooking the New River Gorge. The promontary was named "Lover's Leap" by settlers, and has acquired an urban legend involving two young Native Americans from different tribes.

Dovedale in the Peak District in the UK has a limestone promontory named lova leap reached by a set of steps built by Italian prisoners of war captured in the Second World War. The local legend is that a young woman believed her lover had been killed in the Napoleonic war, so she threw herself off the top of the promontory. Later her family found out that her boyfriend was alive and well.

Blowing Rock Mountain, outside Blowing Rock, North Carolina, has a similar legend of a young lover leaping from the cliff and instead of plunging to his death, is saved. In this version the lover is saved by the blowing wind which sends him back into the arms of his sweetheart.

Jamaica, on the south coast of St. Elizabeth, has a Lover's Leap 1700 ft above the Caribbean Sea. Lovers' leap is named after two slave lovers from the 18th century, Mizzy and Tunkey. According to legend, their master, Chardley, liked Mizzy; so, in a bid to have her for himself, he arranged for her lover, Tunkey, to be sold to another estate. Mizzy and Tunkey fled to avoid being separated but were eventually chased to the edge of a large steep cliff. Rather than face being caught and separated, the lovers embraced and jumped over the cliff. The story was used as the basis for a romantic novel.

Wills Mountain has a Lover's Leap overlooking "the Narrows" at Cumberland, Maryland, USA. It is 1652 ft above sea level and made up of oddly squared projections of rock from its top all the way down to the National Highway (U.S. Rte. 40) below. The City of Cumberland and the surrounding states of Pennsylvania and West Virginia may be seen from this point.

The historic California Gold Rush era town of Knights Ferry, California has a USGS designated Lovers Leap overlooking an area along the Stanislaus River. The Leap itself is a small cap of exposed limestone standing above the surrounding hillside, with a 250 foot vertical drop into the river below. The cliff is located southwest of the town alongside California 120/108 and is viewed by several million people a year as they pass by on their way to Yosemite National Park and other regional attractions. Though the highway passes within a few hundred feet of the top of the Leap, the cliff itself is located on private ranchland and is not accessible to the public. Depending on which version of the local lore you believe, the point was given its name after a miners wife threw herself from its top after her young husband was killed working the gold fields, or after a young miner threw himself from the top after the woman he was pursuing chose another man. A third legend mirrors other Lovers Leap locations, claiming that two young Native Americans threw themselves from the point.

List of locations

 * In the United States
 * Bluff Park, Hoover, Alabama
 * Lover's Leap, Tombigbee River Mile 96, Jackson, Alabama
 * Lover's leap, Greenwood, Arkansas
 * Lover's Leap, Lake Tahoe, California
 * Vail, Colorado; name of a run on Blue Sky Basin
 * Lover's Leap Bridge and State Park, New Milford, Connecticut
 * Starved Rock, Utica, Illinois
 * Lover's Leap, Slade, Kentucky, Natural Bridge State Park
 * Lover's Leap Park, Bangor, Maine
 * Cumberland Narrows, Maryland
 * Purgatory Chasm State Reservation, Massachusetts
 * Lovers Leap, Hannibal, Missouri
 * Philmont Scout Ranch outside Cimarron, New Mexico
 * Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania
 * Rock City, a roadside attraction on Lookout Mountain near Chattanooga, Tennessee
 * Lover's Leap, in Cameron Park, Waco, Texas
 * Natural Tunnel, Duffield, Virginia
 * Stuart, Virginia, USA in Patrick County has a Lover's Leap in the Blue Ridge Mountains, about 10 mi west of Stuart on U.S. Highway 58
 * Lover's Leap, Turn Point, Stuart Island, Washington
 * Quincy, California, Off Buck's Lake Road
 * Lovers Leap, Knights Ferry, California, alongside California 120.


 * Elsewhere
 * Fonte dos Amores, Poços de Caldas, Minas Gerais, Brazil
 * Elora Gorge, Elora, Ontario, Canada
 * Two Lovers Point, Tamuning, Guam
 * Lover's Leap Rock, Dargle Valley, Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland
 * Lovers' Rock (la Peña de los Enamorados), Antequera, Andalucia, Spain
 * Lovers Leap, Otago Peninsula, Dunedin, New Zealand
 * Lover's Leap, Dovedale, Peak District, England, United Kingdom
 * Lover's Leap, Trincomalee, Sri Lanka
 * Lover's Leap, Saint Elizabeth, Jamaica

Legends
Mark Twain in Life on the Mississippi writes: "There are fifty Lover's Leaps along the Mississippi from whose summit disappointed Indian girls have jumped." Princess Winona is one such legend, in which Princess Winona leaps to her death rather than marry a suitor she does not love. Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, USA, is one site for the Princess Winona legend, though other locations include Winona Falls in Pennsylvania, Camden County, Missouri and Cameron Park in Waco, Texas.