Woods Wanderer

With all the rain that has fallen lately, I was a little worried about driving the 6-mile, unimproved dirt road all the way back to the trailhead parking lot and leaving it there for the next three days. I could handle anything on the trail, but a washed-out culvert on the way out could confound me. All the same, the Whitehouse trailhead put me within a day’s hike of Canary Pond, and I really wanted to go there.

When I hiked the Northville-Placid Trail through the Adirondacks back in 2006, I passed a beautiful little pond and vowed to go back and spend some time there someday. So that’s what I set out to do three days ago, crossing the suspension bridge swinging over the West Branch of the Sacandaga River then plunging deep into the woods.

It was a 7-mile hike back to the Canary Pond, nestled in the heart of the Silver Lake Wilderness. I figured I could handle that and the 700-foot climb directly ahead, with only a 30-pound pack tugging at my shoulders. I was half right about that. Yeah, I managed to do it, but I arrived at the pond late afternoon completely wiped out. “What’s wrong with me?” I wondered as I slowly set up camp. Oh yeah, I’m 67-years old.

I crept from my tent the second day aching from head to toe but limbered up a bit after puttering around camp. That’s when the fun really began. A whole day doing a lot of nothing: watching dragonflies patrol the shoreline, listening to the faint summer breeze barely rustling leaves, and taking pictures of the many different kinds of mushrooms. I scribbled in my field journal until my mind went blank. Then I stripped off all my clothes and slipped into the surprisingly cold pond to swim around. After that I sat cross-legged in camp, completely lost in the moment. When I snapped out of it, I said: “Ah… now I get it, Buddha.”

Owls kept me awake the most of the second night with their incessant hooting, but I didn’t mind. I packed up early the third day as rain clouds gathered overhead then got back on the trail. Mostly downhill, it was an easy walk out despite the many bogs and mud holes. I saw no one, realizing that I’d seen no one since a couple of thru hikers passed me two days earlier. Yeah, it was a good outing. And the drive out of the woods was no problem. No rain fell until I returned home.

Tags: Adirondacks, backcountry, backpacking, solitude, wilderness

After a lengthy session on the computer, putting together a collection of philosophical essays, I pull on my boots, grab a teardrop pack then head out the door. I drive to the Milton Pond Town Forest only half an hour away for a day hike. I’m not in the mood for a longer drive into the mountains, but I need a woods fix. This’ll have to do.

Late morning and mid-week, there’s only one other car parked at the trailhead. This town forest isn’t a wilderness, but it looks like I’ll have the place pretty much to myself for a while. That’s good. That’ll make it easier to groove on the wild.

The three-quarter-mile Pond Access Trail is a beaten path, ten feet wide in places, but it gets me to Four Corners where there are several options. Usually I do the Pond Circuit Trail, as most people do, but this time I opt for the longer Ridgeline Trail. A much narrower trail, it winds deeper into the woods, away from the pond, then swings around in a 3-mile loop. I break a sweat as the path slowly rises to higher ground.

Numerous mud holes, high humidity, and red efts on the trail tell the story: it has been a very wet summer. The vegetation is thick, giving this forest a wilder feeling than one would expect while hiking anywhere in the mostly developed Champlain Valley. I’m digging it. I’m also maintaining a steady, two-mile clip and feeling the burn in my legs. Yeah, after nine straight days of philosophical abstractions, it feels good to be physical. It feels good to connect with my animal self.

Just before reaching a saddle between two hills, I stop long enough to catch my breath and drink some water. There’s no breeze, no birds singing, no sound at all. I’m pleasantly surprised by this deep forest silence. The rest of the hike is just as pleasant. A pair of hikers slips past me while I’m lounging at a lookout, eating lunch an hour later, but I’m still feeling the wildness. And before even finishing this hike, I resolve to come back and do this trail again soon, real soon. It’s so close to home.

Tags: Champlain Valley, solo hiking, Vermont woods, wildness