Woods Wanderer

A cardinal sings its heart out from a nearby tree.  The ground out my back door is barren, muddy and soft.  The first light arrives before breakfast and lasts until dinnertime.  Something wild is stirring within me now, but it’s way too early for spring.  Here in the North Country, we know better.  We know there’s at least one more deep freeze in store for us, along with several more winter storms.  This is March, after all, not April.

Oh sure, this freeze-and-thaw routine is good sugarin’ weather, but the sap can run for well over a month before the first bud on a maple tree opens.  You might find the first purple fingers of skunk cabbage punching through the snow along the edges of wetlands, ponds and waterways, but don’t go looking for any other wildflowers just yet.  You might see a robin on an exposed patch of grass, but it’s wintering over – not a migrant.  No, don’t start thinking spring just yet.  We’re still on the frosty side of the vernal equinox.

There are lots of tracks in the snow now.  The wild animals are stirring.  Won’t be long before they’re prowling around our trashcans.  Thought I smelled a skunk the other day, but maybe that was just wishful thinking.  Yeah, you know you’re in a bad place when you start longing for skunks.  What can I say?  Not everyone living this far north is into winter.  I’m tired of pretending that I like cold and snow just because I live in Vermont.

The wild stirs deep within.  I’m trying to ignore it.  I have a lot of work to do and can’t go gallivanting into the woods just yet.  All the same, a trail is calling my name.  My dog stares at me.  “Do you hear it?” she asks with her eyes.  Damned dog.  If I listened to her, I’d never get any work done.

I’ve been productive lately.  My head is full of ideas.  Oh sure, I’m getting soft and fat sitting here in front of this computer screen typing away, but I’m getting things done!  So forget those wild urges.  There are still piles of dirty snow out my window and the sky is endlessly overcast.  March is an excellent month for finishing projects started last fall.  Besides, it’s way too early for spring.

“Do you hear it?” my dog asks again.  I tell her that I’m trying to ignore it.  But something tells me I’ll be walking a trail later on today.  The sun blazing through a crack in the clouds will change everything.  Then I’ll pull on my boots and slip out the door.  Better get some work done this morning while I can.

Tags: nature in winter, signs of spring, the wild, Vermont

I was waiting in line at the grocery store earlier today, trying to figure out how Octo-mom got her bikini body, when suddenly it occurred to me that I’m not spending enough time outdoors.  My excuse is that I’m hard at work on my literary projects during the winter, but the truth is I’d rather spend my time reading and pondering the mysteries of the universe whenever I’m not working.  But grocery store tabloids don’t lead to any deep thoughts, so I dropped off my groceries at home and headed for Kill Kare State Park to stretch my legs.

My dog, Matika, was all for going to Kill Kare.  She hopped around excitedly in the back seat of the car while we drove there.   Then again, she thought going out yesterday in the freezing rain was a good idea.  No, her judgment isn’t to be trusted.

Kill Kare is a spit of public land jutting into Lake Champlain.  Dogs aren’t allowed in the park during the summer, but in the winter nobody cares.  From a large field right next to the lake, I tossed a ball for Matika to chase while I walked around taking in the scenery.

The lake was iced over as far as I could see.  Shafts of light breaking through gray clouds illuminated Adirondack foothills a dozen miles away.  A steady breeze rippled the open leads of water close to shore.  Several ice fishermen were standing over their holes a hundred yards away, dreaming of perch.  A couple days of above-freezing temps had melted off all the snow, revealing nearly transparent ice no more than six inches thick.  Wouldn’t catch me out there on a bet.

It didn’t take long for the wind blowing across the lake ice to cut through my four layers of clothing.  Didn’t look like the fishermen were catching anything, yet no one moved from their hole.  They all seemed oblivious to the wind.  I stuck around long enough to wear out my dog then headed for the car.  Snow flurries were swirling around my head by the time I reached it.

While finishing my walk, I daydreamed about the choppy, green-gray lake water of early spring and the warmer weather beyond.  Then I realized that today’s the meteorological middle of winter here in Vermont, or thereabouts.  That means we’re halfway through the cold season, so balmy days are still months away.  The lake will remain iced over a while longer still.  Ice fishermen will have ample opportunity to catch perch.  Wish I shared their enthusiasm for the sport, but I’m going indoors to ponder the imponderables instead.  Winter is, after all, a good season for pondering.

Tags: nature in winter, Vermont, walking

A few days ago, I dropped everything and headed for the hills.  I hiked the Long Trail south from Route 15, taking full advantage of unseasonable warmth and sunshine.  I wore a red flannel shirt to announce myself to hunters.  My dog, Matika, wore a blaze orange vest.   I followed trail markers up a dirt road hugging Smith Brook to a clearing about a mile back.  From there I would either stay on the trail or bushwhack in one direction or another.  I hadn’t decided yet.

At the clearing, I looked over and saw a pickup truck parked next to the hunting camp. I had walked past this camp many times before but had never seen anyone there.  Since I’ve been bushwhacking and guerrilla camping in these woods for a dozen years or more, I thought maybe I should stop by and get permission to do so.  The land between here and the northernmost boundary of Mount Mansfield State Forest isn’t posted, but it never hurts to get permission.  So I knocked on the door.

A tall, thin man about my age in full hunting regalia opened the door.  He immediately invited me and my dog inside.  We exchanged names.  Adrian sat down at the ancient Formica table and gestured for me to join him. He lit a cigarette.  Did I mind if he smoked?  Of course not.  What the heck, I thought, it’s his camp.

We talked about an hour.  At first we kept to safe subjects like the weather, what the beavers and other wild animals in the neighborhood were doing, and the beauty of the surrounding forest.  Then we kicked it up a notch: bears coming around camp, and coyote predation.  Did I like bear meat?  I prefer elk or deer, I told Adrian, adding that my favorite wild food is brook trout.  I’ve taken and eaten a few from the nearby stream, in fact.  With a nod he approved of that.

Am I a member of the Green Mountain Club?  Yes I am, I said.  Since I regularly hike the LT and other trails maintained by the GMC, I feel obligated to pay dues at the very least.  And with that announcement, the fun began.

Adrian told me his family has owned this land, through which the Long Trail passes, for many years.  His grandfather used to log it.  Now the logging here is done mostly by the Johnson Company, on the other side of the brook.  But every once in a while, some hiker would leave a note on Adrian’s door telling him he shouldn’t cut the trees.  It’s ugly and bad for the environment, or something like that.  A hiker left a note on his generator once, telling him it was too noisy.  Other hikers have broken into his camp – when the nearby shelter was full.  In recent years, the GMC asked for an easement, thus assuring that the Long Trail would forever pass through here.  Adrian’s family has always allowed the trail to cross their land but was offended by the Club’s desire for a 200-foot no-logging buffer on either side of the trail.  And so on.  I got the message loud and clear.  What started out as a friendly and casual arrangement had degenerated to Us-versus-Them.  Soon the LT would be rerouted to a strip of land the GMC had acquired just east of Adrian’s property.

Towards the end of the hour, we both agreed it was time to stop talking and get into the woods.  November days are short.  Before leaving, though, I mustered up the courage to ask Adrian’s permission to continue hiking and camping on his land.  He granted permission with a shrug of the shoulders, as if that was the least of his concerns.  So I thanked him and said goodbye.

A short while later, I was so lost in thought that I missed a turn and accidentally left the Long Trail.  But instead of backtracking, I continued down a snowmobile trail until it crossed a small brook.  Then I bushwhacked downstream to a cranberry bog I’ve been meaning to visit for years.  Eventually I retraced my steps, hiking out of the woods.  But when I passed the camp in the clearing, Adrian’s truck was gone.  I hope our conversation didn’t sour the day for him.  Nothing leaves a bitter taste in the mouth quite like politics does, no matter how civil the discourse may be.  I had tried to listen respectfully, but the ghosts of past belligerents still haunted the man.  And there would be more of the same in the future, no doubt.

Tags: hiking, Long Trail, politics, Vermont

Although some of the trees here in the valley are still aflame with late autumn brilliance, the mountain forests are largely denuded – a sea of brown/gray sticks waiting for snow.  I look up and see tangible proof of what my light-hungry psyche already suspects: the beginning of winter is weeks, not months, away.

There are more leaves on the ground than there are leaves still clinging to branches.  The tourists who stampeded into Vermont for peak color are long gone now, leaving natives behind to contemplate the long, cold season ahead.  A winterizing to-do list grows, yet there’s still gas in my lawnmower.  Once again, it seems, the changing season has taken me by surprise.

The hunters are all excited.  They gather up their gear like squirrels gathering nuts and will soon be chasing their quarry through the hills.  I am one of those left-behind people, hired years ago by avid hunter to keep his small motel running during the weeks he’s away.  My season is the season of wildflowers, dusty trails and brook trout, so I don’t mind babysitting a nearly empty motel between Halloween and Thanksgiving.  I watch TV when I’m not daydreaming of summer adventures.

My dog, Matika, is restless.  She gets a little ball-chasing exercise every day, but knows all too well that it’s been weeks since our last big woods adventure.  What can I say?  I’ve been busy working, entertaining visitors, and fighting off a virus.  I’ve been too busy writing about the wild to immerse myself in it, as sad as that may sound.  That’s the big joke of being a nature writer.  Your subject is outdoors but you do your work indoors.  My dog is not amused.

The sky is a gray sheet.  Geese honk in the distance, just in case I had any doubts about what time of year it is.  There’s a nip in the air now, forcing me to leave the house with a sweater or a light jacket when I run my errands.  But psychologically I’m still in shirtsleeves, and frequently I scrape the morning frost from my car windshield that way.  It’ll take a dusting of snow on the ground to change that.

Stick season is the in-between season, and that’s exactly how I feel these days, like so many others.  Time changes this weekend.  Our clocks will fall back an hour and dark evenings will soon be a way of life.  But I’m not ready for it.  I saw a wooly worm the other day and it looked ready for a long, hard winter.  Wild creatures, it seems, are always one step ahead of us – more in touch with the seasons than we could ever be.

Tags: moods, nature writing, seasonal change, Vermont

Monday morning I headed for the hills.  After crossing over a recently opened mountain pass, I drove through the Stowe Valley to the edge of Mt. Mansfield State Forest where I parked my car.  The sun was shining brightly.  My dog, Matika, grew excited, especially when I shouldered my pack and we started up the well-groomed woods road.  I wanted to stretch my legs.  With the upper reaches of the Long Trail still wet with snowmelt, this was one of the few responsible ways to hike a trail deep into the forest.

The Cotton Brook loop is either 8 or 9 miles long, depending upon where you start.  I made it a 9-miler just to push myself.  It was a stress test of sorts, with an eye towards a trek on the AT I’ve slated for August.  I hiked hard at the outset, averaging 3 mph even while stopping occasionally to check out wildflowers.  Jack-in-the-pulpit greeted me at the outset.  Foamflower, wood anenome, bellwort and bluets bloomed along the side of the trail.  A few early-season bloomers like trillium and trout lily lingered beyond their peak days.  The surrounding forest was a dozen different shades of green.  I reveled in it while breathing heavy and breaking a sweat in the chilly, early morning air.

Matika cavorted off-trail at first but settled into a steady trot once she realized that she was in for the long haul.  Four and a half miles back, we stopped at one of the two main feeder streams tumbling from the head of the Cotton Brook Valley.  There the stream ran clear despite heavy rain a couple days earlier.  I splashed some of it into my face before continuing my hike – a baptism of sorts.  I do not take clear mountain water lightly.

Around six miles, I felt dull nagging aches mounting in my hips, knees and lower back.  The higher-elevation bloom of Dutchman’s breeches and bleeding hearts distracted me somewhat, but the aches persisted even when the trail flattened out.  Suddenly a euphoric rush coursed through my body and I smiled skyward.  The endorphins had just kicked in.

Around seven miles I left the main trail and hiked down to the brook.  There Matika and I took a long break.  A few black flies buzzed us while we ate lunch but weren’t menacing enough to take seriously.  Here the mountain stream was a whitewater torrent loaded with silt, more mesmerizing than calming.  I lost myself in it for a while.

My joints had seized up during the break so it wasn’t easy getting going again.  All the same, I set a steady pace on the way out and enjoyed every minute of it.  Another wave of endorphins helped, as did the ibuprofen when it finally kicked in.  Matika stayed ten yards in front of me.  The warm spring air made it easy to daydream.  I thanked my lucky stars for living in Vermont and being able to slip into the Green Mountains this way pretty much at will.  I’m fully aware the hard hiking through the woods is luxury that few people enjoy.  At my age it isn’t easy, but the dull aches are a small price to pay.  Yeah, I’m a lucky stiff.

Tags: hiking, mountain stream, Vermont, wildflowers

Last week I hiked the trail around Indian Brook Reservoir just to stretch my legs.  The Reservoir was completely iced over and the trail was half a foot of packed snow, but it was good getting out.  I’ve been feeling cooped up lately so it was a pleasure hiking long and hard enough to break a sweat.  Besides, the air temperature was hovering right below freezing – a balmy, late-winter day by Vermont standards.  That and the bright sun shining through the clear sky overhead made me reconsider my bias against the season.  Maybe winter isn’t so bad after all.

On the far side of the Reservoir, I found a tiny hemlock cone in the middle of the trail.  I looked around then plucked a few more from the snow.  I did the same beneath another hemlock a short while later.  I put the cones in my shirt pocket and finished my hike.  Back home I found a place for them atop a stack of books.  I knew what would happen.

The next day, the cones opened up, exposed as they were to indoor heat.  I smile every time I notice them.  The first hemlock cones of the season – proof positive that winter is on its last leg.  The way I see things, these small cones mark the beginning of a new growing season.  Spring can’t be that far away.

Last Friday an exceptionally warm wind blew out of the southwest, driving temperatures into the fifties.  I swapped out my winter coat for a rain jacket and went for a long walk on the Rail Trail.  Plowing through the punky snow was as difficult as walking a sandy beach, but I didn’t care.  I reveled in the melt-off going on all around me, dreaming of things to come.

Right now it’s snowing outside.  I just returned home from a short walk on the edge of town where a wicked wind blew the white stuff horizontally across the trail.  I froze one half of my face on the way out, and the other half on the way back.  So it goes.  I probably won’t be outside again today any longer than it takes to shovel a path to the car.  But the hemlock cones resting atop my books still make me smile.  I know what’s coming.  It’s just a matter of time now.

Tags: signs of spring, Vermont, walking

While slogging along a snowmobile trail the other day, I couldn’t help but notice the sun smiling overhead.  It shined brightly in the middle of a deep blue sky – the kind we see here in Vermont when dry, arctic air blows our way.  Yankee blue, I call it.  There’s no equivalent in the Midwest where I grew up.  Skies so blue that it’s hard to believe that they’ll ever turn gray again.

Sometimes the snow is so bright white that you can’t help but love it.  Enough warmth radiates from the sun to make you believe that the worst of winter has passed.  And as long as you have your back to the wind, life is good.

Yesterday it snowed all day long.  I went out and shoveled it for a while, drank hot chocolate indoors at lunchtime, then went out and shoveled again.  My dog, Matika, romped in the snow piles undoing some of my work.  I didn’t care.  Neither did my octogenarian neighbor, Scout, who was happy to shovel away most of the day.  Vermonters like to brag about how cold it is in early morning when they go out to start their cars, and how high their snow piles are.  No sense fighting it.  After a while, the cold and snow simply become a way of life.

Is the cup half empty or half full?  That’s an age-old question whose answer reveals more about the person answering than what’s actually in the cup.  At first we respond to the weather, the seasons, and everything else by passing judgment on it.  Then, if we have any sense at all, we let go of that judgment and learn to live with what has been cast our way, maybe even finding joy in it.  Few circumstances in life are truly tragic: war, famine, pestilence, and that other dark horseman.  The rest is merely challenging, like the frigid wind icing over your face or the foot of snow that has to be pushed from your driveway.

I am one of those people who usually takes a dark view of things, who looks at the cup and sees what’s missing, not what’s there.  But every once in a while, I find myself enjoying my labors, even when chilled by my own sweat and running the risk of frostbite. The best part of my walk the other day occurred when I turned towards the wind, my face freezing all the way back to the car.  The best part of shoveling snow is the ache in my lower back afterward.  How can I explain this?  I can’t really.  All I can say is that sometimes adversity is good for the soul.  And when on occasion there are Yankee blue skies overhead, it all seems worthwhile.

Tags: adversity, moods, seasonal change, Vermont, weather

People living south of the border (the VT/MA state line, that is) are always surprised when I tell them that I don’t ski.  They think that’s what Vermont is all about.  I tried the sport once but didn’t much care for it.  I get out and snowshoe occasionally but am not as excited about that I as once was.  No, I hunker down during winter for the most part, focusing in on my literary work.  I wait for the other seven months of the year to roll around, when I can feel the earth underfoot and walking is easy.

Whether one skis or not, there’s no denying that Vermont is snow country.  It’s not unusual to get a hundred inches of the white stuff during a season here in the Champlain Valley and lot more than that falls on the mountains.  Oh sure, much of it melts off when the sun shines, but snow generally covers the ground from early December until the end of March.  So you’d better like it if you want to live here.

Do I like snow?  Let’s just say I’ve grown accustomed to it.  Growing up in central Ohio, I endured months of relentless gray skies and freezing rain.  By comparison, snow is much easier to contend with, especially on one of those blue-sky days like yesterday when the sun illuminates the frosty landscape.  A day like that can make even the crankiest, ice-hating curmudgeon believe that Vermont is a winter wonderland.

Shoveling snow is another matter, though.  I’ve noticed that those who like snow the most have Thule racks on their cars and usually bolt for the slopes after a winter storm has dumped a half foot or so.  You rarely see them shoveling out their driveways in full skiing regalia – that’s what the plows on the front of pickups are for.  But us poorer folk cringe at cost of snow plowing, so we resort to snow blowers or do it by hand.  It’s good exercise, we tell ourselves.  And that it is, for sure.

I pant and grunt as I push the snow around.  I often groan when I toss a particularly heavy load onto a five-foot snow pile.  I curse when my shovel catches on a knot of ice, wrenching my shoulder.  I sweat no matter what I wear and usually have ice encrusted in my beard when I finish.  A blast of cold air whips out of the northwest and I curse again.  Then my goofy dog, Matika, looks up from the hole she has dug in a snow pile and I can’t help but laugh.  Her furry face is even more ice-encrusted than mine, but she couldn’t be happier.  I stop shoveling long enough to toss her red ball a few times and she leaps through the snow like a snowbound dolphin.  Then the sun comes out again.

Being a Vermonter doesn’t mean playing in the snow all the time, but somehow we learn to live with it.  Hat, gloves and a heavy winter coat are essential.  A decent pair of snow boots can completely reverse one’s outlook on the season.  A little time spent outdoors sets one up for that commonplace moment when wild nature beams a frigid smile.  So when the weather forecasters threaten us with a Nor’easter that’s sure to dump a foot or more, we check our shovels to make sure they aren’t broken and say: “Bring it on!”  The more snow we get, the more we have to brag about.

Tags: moods, snow, Vermont

Midday.  Matika and I stretch our legs.  There’s a light flurry of snow falling, which is probably why we have the hill all to ourselves today.  The forest is mostly shades of brown and gray.  Matika cavorts about the open woods, looking for a chipmunk or squirrel to terrorize.  She occasionally finds one rummaging about the leaves.  I ignore her for the most part as I amble up the trail.

Halfway up the hill, I detour to the lookout for a quick view of St. Albans.  The town sprawls before me like a model railroad layout.  The collective hum of cars coming and going contradicts the stillness of the greater panorama.  Beyond the edge of town, farm fields and woodlots stretch to Lake Champlain and its islands.  Beyond the lake, mountains rise into low clouds.  A squall to the west blocks the northernmost edge of the Adirondacks from view.  The cold wind brings tears to my eyes.  I turn away from the lookout and slip deeper into the woods.

While climbing the last rise to the summit, I wonder how many more times I’ll hike this hill before I tire of it.  There’s no way to know, of course.  There’s only this eternal present.  Deep in it now, I realize that I come here more for a sense of perspective than anything else – a quick fix of the wild when I haven’t the time or inclination to drive an hour or so to the mountains.  A week, a day, or only an hour in the woods, I take what I can get.

I cross over the summit ridge, then catch the view eastward from the nearby ski slope.  More cars race along the interstate below.  I turn away, deliberately cutting my pace to make the downhill half of the hike last as long as possible.  I have work to do but am in no big hurry to get back to it.  Matika chases a squirrel up a tree.  I call her back to my side.

On the way back to the car, I pass the remnant of an old, dead tree still protruding twenty feet into the air.  I’ve been passing it for years and can’t help but wonder when it’ll come down.  Someday it’ll drop.  It’s just a matter of time.  Chances are good that I won’t be walking past it when it does, yet fallen trees litter the forest floor.

It seems like everything is a function of time and scale.   “Time is cheap and rather insignificant,” Thoreau once wrote in his journals, “It matters not whether it is a river which changes from side to side in a geological period or an eel that wriggles past in an instant.”  A walk in the woods, even a short one like this, drives this point home.

The roof of my house is visible from the lookout on the hill.  So is the cluster of buildings downtown where I run my errands.  The better part of my life is visible from up there, though I rarely think about it as I go about my daily affairs.  Someday I’m going to sit up there and ponder things for hours on end, or so I keep telling myself.  But I can never sit at that lookout more than twenty minutes before growing restless, thinking about all the things I should be doing.  That, I find, is the essential paradox of a good view.

Tags: reflection, time, Vermont, walking

A couple weeks ago, I stood beneath the old maple tree in my back yard amid a shower of leaves.  A steady breeze coming on the heels of a hard frost was doing the trick.  My old maple is one of the last trees to give up its leaves.  On that day it relented.  The sun was shining through a partly cloudy sky and each leaf shouted orange as it tumbled to the ground.  Hundreds, thousands of leaves rained down.  I was certain that the tree would be naked the next day.  But a tight cluster of leaves in the top left quarter of it refused to budge.

I looked up once while raking yesterday to see how many leaves were still clinging there.  Remarkably, the tree was clear of them.  Can’t say when exactly the last few leaves came down.  I missed that show.  But as I raked it occurred to me that “stick season” had arrived in Vermont as it usually does, without fanfare.  And winter is right around the corner.  I raked for a couple hours, then went inside to warm up as the faintest flurry of snow fell from the dark gray clouds overhead.

When my wife and I drove to Montpelier the other day, fresh snow blanketed the mountains and a dusting of it covered the grass on both sides of the highway.  The landscape all around us was a pitching sea of naked trees.  It was easy to imagine happy hunters creeping through them.  A little higher up, the earliest skiers will be at it soon, if they aren’t already.

There are no big snowstorms in the forecast, but every Vermonter knows they’re coming.  Winter in this part of the world is like that.  Although it gives plenty of advance warning to those of us paying close attention, it still shows up one day like an uninvited guest.  Sometimes that guest goes away for a few weeks then comes back.  Sometimes it stays until spring.  Either way, it pays to be ready.

I’ve insulated my house, brought in my outdoor planters, and dug out my snow shovels.  My winter boots are handy, as are my winter clothes.  Already my thoughts have turned inward as they usually do this time of year.  Winter is the best season for pondering philosophical matters.  It’s easy to read, write and think when the days are short and the windows have frosted over.  I used to hate winter but now I look forward to it.  I get a lot of literary work done when the snow flies.

I’ll gather up a few more bags of leaves later on today then put away my rake.  If there’s time afterward, I’ll go for a long walk with my dog through nearby sticks just to listen to the clatter of branches against each other in the late autumn wind.  That’s a sound easy to hear when the leaves are down.

A couple days ago, a diehard pansy was still flowering in the corner of my garden.  Now it’s gone.  I’m stocking up on root vegetables and planning meals that call for them.  Best not to fight it.  Best to smile at the 4:30 sundown, fully aware of the implication.  The geese have headed south and the leaves are all on the ground.  Dull brown, dry and crinkled, fallen leaves used to sadden me, but not any more.  Now they look magnificent.  They clearly illustrate nature’s endless cycle of growth and decay.  They show the circle completed.

Tags: nature, reflection, Vermont