Mar 30 2010
Mist in the Birches
With temps in the 30s and a 90% chance of rain, I wasn’t real excited about going for a hike today. But it was either that or mope around the house all afternoon. So I changed into wools and thermals, and went out the door.
The moment I stepped into the woods, I knew I’d made the right decision. With the ground giving way underfoot and nothing but trees all around, I immediately felt my nerves uncoil. Five or ten minutes later, as I was leaving the logging road and starting to bushwhack, I sensed an old, familiar self returning. It’s like that sometimes. After a long winter, I don’t even know who I am any more. It takes a cool, wet forest to remind me.
I walked past patches of snow still on the ground – reminders that winter just ended, and that one last snowstorm is still quite possible. Here in New England, spring is the least predictable of all the seasons. And that’s why I was still dressed for the colder weather.
My dog, Matika, frolicked through the forest, hot on the tracks of wild animals, occasionally flushing a ruffed grouse. I can only imagine what she was thinking as she sniffed the fresh piles of deer pellets. Maybe she too was feeling a wilder self return.
Angry about the poor health of loved ones, the fallout of a bad economy and never having enough money, I hiked furiously at first. I swept around a frozen beaver pond, hellbent upon moving forward like I had somewhere important to go. Then I stopped in a nearly pure stand of white birches as if stopping the madness. I looked around and saw only mist and stillness. I listened and heard only forest silence, until a pileated woodpecker let out its manic cry in the distance. And that’s when it started to drizzle. But I didn’t care.
Sweating in so many layers, I shed my sweater and rolled up my sleeves. Then I meandered aimlessly through the forest, sometimes following a trail, sometimes not, as the mist thickened around me. Matika flashed a great big smile at me and I returned it – both of us in dog heaven.
Back on the logging road, I left deep boot prints next to moose tracks while walking out. I didn’t even try to dodge the pools of meltwater. I sloshed through them like an eight year old trusting his rubber boots. Then I crossed a brook with a short, easy hop. The open brook’s babble and bubble was music to my ears.
Returning home, I marveled at how dismal the day looked from inside the house, and how chilled I felt all of a sudden. So it’s a good thing that I went out today. Otherwise, I might still think that it’s still winter.
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Wilderness philosopher, backcountry traveler and freelance writer, McLaughlin has ventured into the wilds of Southeast Alaska and New York’s Adirondacks as well as the forests of northern New England.