Lover's Leap

File:Hawks Nest.JPG from Lovers' Leap at Hawk's Nest State Park, Ansted, West Virginia]]

Lover's Leap, or (in plural) 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 Lover's Leap.

List of locations

=In the United States=

Bluff Park, Hoover, Alabama
Lovers Leap, DeSoto Caverns, Childersburg, Alabama
Lovers' Leap, Tombigbee River Mile 96, Jackson, Alabama
Noccalula Falls Park, Gadsden, Alabama
Lovers Leap, Green Forest, Arkansas
Lovers' Leap, Greenwood, Arkansas
Lovers Leap, Levesque, Arkansas
Lovers Leap, Knights Ferry, California, alongside California Highway 120
Lover's Leap, Lake Tahoe, California
Quincy, California, off Buck's Lake Road
Vail, Colorado, name of a run on Blue Sky Basin
Lovers' Leap Bridge and State Park, New Milford, Connecticut
Lover's Leap, Yonah Mountain, Georgia
Rock City, a roadside attraction in Lookout Mountain, Georgia

File:Two Lover's Point - panoramio.jpg is a major tourist attraction on Guam]]

Two Lovers Point (Puntan dos Amantes) in Dededo, Guam
Spirit Lake, Idaho
Lover's Leap Pere Marquette State Park, Grafton, Illinois
Lover's Leap, Franklin Creek State Natural Area, Franklin Grove, Illinois
Starved Rock State Park, Illinois
Lover's Leap, Carrsville, Kentucky
Lovers' Leap, Natural Bridge State Resort Park, Slade, Kentucky
Lovers' Leap Park, Bangor, Maine
Cumberland Narrows, Maryland
Purgatory Chasm State Reservation, Massachusetts
Lovers Leap, Hannibal, Missouri
Lover's Leap, The Palisades, Weehawken, New Jersey
Philmont Scout Ranch, outside Cimarron, New Mexico
Blowing Rock, North Carolina
Lover's Leap, Hot Springs, North Carolina
Lover's Leap, located along Oklahoma State Highway 10 and the Illinois River in Tahlequah, Oklahoma
Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania
Lover's Leap Trail, in Custer State Park, Custer, South Dakota
Lovers' Leap, in Cameron Park, Waco, Texas
Lover's Leap, in Lynn, Massachusetts
Lover's Leap, in Washington County, Utah{{Cite web|url=https://www.google.com/maps?cid=5913602317289476021&hl=en&gl=us|title = Lover's Leap · St. George, UT 84790}}
Lovers' Leap in Patrick County, Virginia, about {{convert|10|mi|0}} west of Stuart on U.S. Highway 58
Natural Tunnel State Park, Duffield, Virginia
Lovers' Leap, Turn Point, Stuart Island, Washington
Lovers' Leap Hawks Nest State Park, Fayette, West Virginia
Maiden Rock, Wisconsin
Whitetop Mountain, Washington County, Virginia

=Elsewhere=

File:Loop Head - geograph.org.uk - 12618.jpg

File:Couple in Lover’s Leap – Trincomalee.jpg

Fonte dos Amores, Poços de Caldas, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Elora Gorge, Elora, Ontario, Canada
La piedra feliz, Valparaíso, Chile
Đulin Ponor, Ogulin, Croatia
Green Valley View aka Suicide Point, Kodaikanal, India
Lovers' Leap Rock, Dargle Valley, Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland
Lovers' Leap / Diarmuid and Gráinne's Rock, Loop Head, County Clare, Ireland
Salto degli Sposi (Spouses' Jump), Presolana Pass, on the border between the provinces of Bergamo and Brescia, Italy. In 1871, a young couple of Polish artists, musician Maximilian Prihoda and painter Anna Stareat, moved in the area. For unknown reasons, one day, they spent the afternoon on the rock, where Prihoda composed his last melody and Stareat painted her last landscape, and then jumped into the gorge below.
Lovers' Leap, Saint Elizabeth, Jamaica
Lovers Leap, Otago Peninsula, Dunedin, New Zealand
Lovers' Rock (la Peña de los Enamorados), Antequera, Andalusia, Spain
Lovers' Leap, Trincomalee, Sri Lanka
Lovers' Leap, Blaise castle estate, Bristol, England, United Kingdom
Lovers' Leap, Dovedale, Peak District, England, United Kingdom
Albion Falls, Hamilton, Ontario

Legends

=United States=

The Lovers' Leap at Hawks Nest State Park in the town of Ansted, West Virginia, along the historic Midland Trail, has a drop of {{convert|585|ft}} from a high cliff overlooking the New River Gorge. The promontory was named "Lovers' Leap" by settlers,Shawnee Captive: The Story of Mary Draper Ingles (Women of the Frontier), page 83, Mary R. Furbee, Morgan Reynolds Publishing (July 2001), {{ISBN|1-883846-69-2}} and has acquired a legend involving two young Native Americans from different tribes.{{cite web |url=http://www.wonderfulwv.com/sub.cfm?month=sept06&fea=2 |title=Wonderful West Virginia |accessdate=2009-05-01 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080915071732/http://www.wonderfulwv.com/sub.cfm?month=sept06&fea=2 |archivedate=2008-09-15 }} The most notable Native American legend can be found in Lookout Mountain, Georgia.https://www.seerockcity.com/things-to-do/

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.{{Cite web |url=http://www.townofblowingrock.com/history.php |title=Blowing Rock - History |access-date=2008-07-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090329040922/http://www.townofblowingrock.com/history.php |archive-date=2009-03-29 |url-status=dead }}

Wills Mountain has a Lovers' Leap overlooking Cumberland Narrows on the west side of Cumberland, Maryland. It is {{convert|1652|ft|m}} above sea level and made up of oddly squared projections of rock from its top all the way down to the National Road (U.S. Route 40) below. The city of Cumberland and the surrounding states of Pennsylvania and West Virginia may be seen from this point.{{Citation needed|date=July 2008}}

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."Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, Penguin Books, New York, 1961 p. 283{{cite web |url=http://www.qufriary.org/Hoebing/lleap.html |title=Phil Hoebing's Legends of "Lovers' Leaps" |accessdate=2008-07-31 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090328134857/http://www.qufriary.org/Hoebing/lleap.html |archivedate=2009-03-28 }} Princess Winona is one such legend, in which the daughter of a Dakota chief leaps to her death rather than marry a suitor she does not love.{{Cite web

|last= Porter

|first= Cynthya

|title= Homecoming to Explore Roles of American Indian Women

|publisher= Winona Daily News reprinted at Diversity Foundation

|date= Feb 1, 2009

|url= http://diversityfoundation.org/HomecomingToExploreRoles.html

|accessdate= 21 Oct 2015}} Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, is one site for the Winona legend, though other locations include Winona Falls in Pennsylvania, Camden County, Missouri, and Cameron Park in Waco, Texas.

=Other=

Dovedale in the Peak District in the United Kingdom has a limestone promontory named Lovers' Leap reached by a set of steps built by Italian prisoners of war captured in World War II. The local legend is that a young woman believed her lover had been killed in the Napoleonic wars, so she threw herself off the top of the promontory. Later, her family found out that her lover was alive and well.{{cite web

|url=http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-ilampark/w-east_midlands-places-southpeakestate/w-east_midlands-places-dovedale.htm#lovers_leap

|title=National Trust – Ilam Park – Dovedale

|publisher=www.nationaltrust.org.uk

|accessdate=2008-04-06

|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080317052126/http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-ilampark/w-east_midlands-places-southpeakestate/w-east_midlands-places-dovedale.htm

|archivedate=2008-03-17

|url-status=dead

}}

The south coast of Jamaica at Saint Elizabeth Parish has a Lovers' Leap {{convert|1700|ft|m}} above the Caribbean Sea. Lovers' Leap is named after two enslaved 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.{{cite web|url=http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Atrium/5460/Introduction/About_Lover_s_Leap/about_lover_s_leap.html|url-status=dead|title=About Lover's Leap|archive-date=2009-10-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091021015234/http://geocities.com/SoHo/Atrium/5460/Introduction/About_Lover_s_Leap/about_lover_s_leap.html}} The story was used as the basis for a romantic novel.Lover's Leap: Based on the Jamaican Legend, Horane Smith, Minerva Press (June 1, 1999), {{ISBN|0-7541-0589-X}}