Woods Wanderer

A few days ago, Judy and I went for an overnighter in the woods. Our work schedules aligned, making it possible. It was a bonus outing for me, and a much needed getaway for Judy. She hadn’t been overnight in the woods in years.

We have a favorite camping spot along a mountain brook about an hour from home. It’s less than a mile from the dirt road where we leave our car. Half that distance is a bushwhack, though, so the spot is very private. We’ve never seen another person there.

We didn’t do much during our stay.  Judy read a book. I did a little fishing. We stared into a campfire, talked, and went for a dip in a nearby pool. Our dog Matika was with us, of course. She chased the chipmunks out of our camp then lounged about. All three of us slept well during the cool, dry August night.

Few bugs, great weather, and the constant rush of a small stream. Completely immersed in a green, leafy world. Can’t imagine how things could have been better. These hybrid outings – part camping, part backpacking – suit our purposes well. We’ve learned how to make the most of them, anyhow.

We lingered the second day. Neither Judy nor I wanted to leave. Next year we’ll make it two nights in the woods, but for now we are satisfied. It was a perfect time out.

Tags: backpacking, camping, mountain stream

Contrary to the image that I create with this blog site, I’m not always on the move. Quite often I sit still – especially when I’m between busy shifts at the hotel. On those days, the shade beneath the old maple tree in my back yard is the place to be. Beats staying indoors, anyhow.

I usually have a small pile of books, notebooks and papers on the table next to me. I do a lot of light-duty literary work beneath the old maple: reading, letter writing, journaling, planning, and so on. Sometimes I just sit and think. Sometimes my dog Matika entices me to get up and throw the ball for her. On the weekends Judy joins me and we talk. I’m never bored.

A squirrel scurries along a nearby fence. Crickets chirp steadily. A cardinal or robin breaks into song every once in a while. The town bustles in the background. A gentle breeze rocks the rope swing dangling from a thick branch, reminding me of busier times with the grandkids. These are the sights and sounds of late summer, pleasant yet inducing a slight melancholy. Here in northern Vermont, the warm season is short indeed.

The writer’s life is a contemplative one. This is true even for those of us who write about the great outdoors. Experiences have to be processed. Ideas need time to ferment. An essential part of woods wandering is not wandering at all.

Tags: backyard nature, contemplation, nature writing, summer

Each year my wife Judy and I have all the grandkids over to our house for several days without their parents. We call it summer camp. It’s an opportunity for us to bond with each other while having lots of fun playing games in the back yard, fishing, swimming, and generally goofing around. Towards the end of summer camp this year, we all went for a hike at Niquette Bay State Park. It was something just a little different.

Although I’ve hiked with most of the grandkids before, this was the first time I’ve had all of them in the woods at once. Since they range in age from 4 to 15, it wasn’t easy keeping them together. Maddie, Hunter and Mason were way out front and wanting to go faster. I kept calling them back. Judy and Kaylee (the teenager) brought up the rear with Tommy (the youngest). They showed him where to put his feet when the trail became all roots and rocks. Johnny and I were in the middle, looking around. We were the first to see the garter snake that slithered across the trail. “I like nature,” Johnny commented. I smiled, nodded my head, and said: “So do I.”

It was a hot, humid day. I brought three liters of water for us to drink. We could have used more. My dog Matika drank from the tiny streams that we crossed. She got the best workout, running back and forth between the fastest and slowest hikers, trying to keep everyone together. German shepherds are like that. They don’t like having the pack dispersed.

Everyone enjoyed the walk, yet no one enjoyed it as much as I did. Judy and I haven’t spent enough time in the woods with the kids – Kaylee being the exception. Since the woods are my element, I’m hoping that this will change in the future. But the pack is widely dispersed between Vermont, New Hampshire and Virginia most of the year. Matika has her work cut out for her.

It’s amazing how fast the kids are growing up, how easily the days slip away. Judy and I make a real effort to stay in touch but our work-a-day lives distract us. We’ve talked about taking all the kids camping sometime. During this last visit, Kaylee mentioned that she’s only three years away from going to college. Clearly we had better plan something soon.

Tags: hiking with children, the passage of time

During the month of August, yours truly will be one of a couple dozen bloggers contributing to an interesting hiking website called Sectionhiker.com. Each day a different outdoor writer will be featured at that site. It’s designed for experienced and beginner hikers alike. Check it out.

I wrote a piece about hiking along a Maine section of the Appalachian Trail called the 100 Mile Wilderness. It focuses on the importance of connecting with the wild, of course. What else would I write about?

Tags: backpacking, blog site, the wild

Once again I loaded up my backpack and went to the West Canada Lakes Wilderness – my favorite part of the Adirondacks. This time I accessed it from the Moose River Recreation Area. A twenty-mile dirt road put me deep in the woods, to the desired trailhead. From there it was a relatively easy hike to Brooktrout Lake.

I had only three days so I made the most of it. I set up camp beneath some conifers along the edge of the lake then did a lot of nothing. It was just what the doctor ordered.

My dog Matika was with me, of course. She was bitten up badly by deer flies and mosquitoes, and overheated in the heat of high summer, but she enjoyed being there anyway. Matika loves the woods almost as much as I do.

On the second day, we walked over to West Lake – a place I had stayed for two nights while hiking the Northville/Placid Trail back in 2006. It felt strange being there, seeing the lake from the opposite shore, but it was good to connect the dots. Having taken four trips into the WCLW over the past decade, I’m really getting to know this sprawling roadless area. It has become my home away from home. I feel more spiritually connected to the wild here than anywhere else.

Yessir, a lot of nothing. After the short walk to West Lake, I returned to camp and hung out. A dip in Brooktrout Lake washed away the sweat. It cooled me down in more ways than one. After that it was easy to sit for most of the afternoon just ruminating and daydreaming. A raven, a pair of loons, and my dog kept me company.

The hike out the third day was predictably sweaty and buggy. I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway. And my mind was a clean slate by the time I reached the car. Wilderness solitude is good for that. “What’s the big deal about being out here?” I ask myself at least once during every deep woods excursion. The answer is nothing, absolutely nothing.

Tags: Adirondacks, backpacking, West Canada Lakes Wilderness, wilderness, wilderness travel

Yesterday I finally made good on a promise to take my grandson Mason up Monadnock. He had been bugging me about it for years, ever since his family had moved to a new home in New Hampshire only fifteen minutes away from that mountain. I told him we’d do it when he was eight, thinking he’d have to be at least that old to have the stamina necessary to make it to the top. Well, he turned eight a week and a half ago, so off we went.

While studying the map a few days before the hike, I began to worry. With 1800 feet elevation change over two miles, I wasn’t sure the little guy could do it. More to the point, I didn’t want the hike to be so grueling that it turned him off hiking forever. As we were getting ready I told him that we didn’t have to go all the way to the top. In so many words, he told me that failure wasn’t an option.

We got an early start, walking in the cool morning air. I set a steady pace as the trail gradually climbed. I checked with Mason regularly to make sure he was doing okay. His face was expressionless. He sat down every time I stopped to catch my breath. I warned him that it was going to get steep ahead. He said nothing. But when we reached the first pitch he sprung to life. He dropped his walking stick and scrambled up and over the rocks on all fours. He moved just like Spiderman, as he explained to me later. “Wait up!” I shouted after him, then I started climbing a bit faster.

As the trail grew steeper and rockier, Mason became more animated. “Come on, Gramps!” he yelled then he stopped and waited for me to catch my breath. I started laughing. Oh sure, he’d get up the mountain, all right. But would I?

Mason was surefooted and being careful. Still I didn’t want to take any chances. I kept him close to me when we broke above the tree line. I pointed out the cairns, explaining how these rock piles were necessary to find one’s way across the barren rock whenever the mountain was wrapped in clouds. Ours was a calm, blue-sky day, but Mason suddenly leaned forward as if struggling against a strong wind. “Keep going, Grandpa. We have to make it to the top,” he said. I assured him that we were almost there.

Upon reaching the summit, Mason found a rocky promontory for us to sit and enjoy the view. We drank plenty of water and ate snacks as a cool breeze dried our sweaty shirts. We shared the summit with half a dozen other hikers. During the long descent back to the parking lot, we passed 59 other hikers on their way up. Mason kept count. We were both glad to be finishing our hike as the temperature reached 80 degrees. We hopped in the car and went to Jaffrey for lunch.

“So what are we going to do for my ninth birthday?” Mason asked. I just smiled, being careful not to overcommit. Then I told him that I’d think of something.

Tags: hiking with children, mountain climbing

Every once in a while, I get the urge to walk a mountain stream. I usually take a fly rod with me, hoping to get into a little trout action, but that’s not what it’s all about. I walk the stream to clear my head, to purge the negative energy from my system. Clear running water is good for that.

My tightly wound nerves start to unravel the moment I step into the woods and hear the rush of water nearby. By the time I’ve finished kneeling on the muddy bank and tying on a fly, I’m in a groove. The first cast separates my cluttered day-to-day life back in the developed places from the streamside here-and-now. From that point on, I’m home free.

After a few casts, I scramble over moss-covered rocks to the next promising hole. When large boulders or downed trees crop up, I step back into the woods, tramping through bracken, ferns and other understory vegetation. I often find a beautiful wildflower or some other delight along the way. My dog Matika often finds something interesting to sniff. Yeah, we’re both easily distracted.

Rock, forest and running water. Shadow and light. Keeping it simple. My tiny fly floats through the emerald pools, following the riffles, and I am ready to respond to the slightest splash. Sometimes it comes, most of the time it does not. The sights, sounds and smells of the mountain stream intoxicate me all the same.

A couple hours of stream walking and I’m ready to just sit and look around. That’s when I know I’m done fishing. I sit until I lose track of time. Then I tramp through the woods, daydreaming all the way back to the car. My boots and pants are sopping wet but I don’t care. The sun breaks through the forest. A thrush or other familiar songbird calls in the distance. I smile absently. I am in my element, and it feels good to be alive.

Tags: fly fishing, immediacy, mountain stream, the forest

I open the door to the back yard, letting the dog out, and am greeted by an early morning sun burning brightly as it clears the trees. Not quite awake yet, the spectacle takes me by surprise even though I’ve seen it a thousand times before. The summer sun at the start of a cloudless day is irresistible.

Summertime is all about the sun. It blazes with such intensity on the Summer Solstice that all memories of the longer, cooler time of year fade to irrelevance. And the day seems to go on forever.

Barefoot before going to work, I putter about the yard pulling weeds, watering the herbs and tomato plants spilling out of planters, and checking out flowers now opening to the sun. Then I settle into the shade of an old maple tree with my books and papers. Even when I’m not banging around in the woods, life is good. Simple pleasures, like fresh strawberries, are abundant this time of year.

Our very existence depends upon that immense orb of fiery nuclear reactions over ninety million miles away. Without it this planet would be a cold, barren wasteland as most planets are. Any closer to it and Earth would be a living hell. On some level all the plants around us seem to know this. Each day they reach towards the sun as if worshiping it, and flourish before its unblinking gaze. Is it any wonder that our first gods were sun gods? Even today, in countless modern, secular ways, we still worship it as we leave our homes and offices to recreate out-of-doors.

Here in Vermont, this far north, the growing season is short indeed. But that only makes these summer days that much more precious. This isn’t California. The sun does not shine endlessly here. So when it does we are wise to set aside everything else we are doing – the supposedly important things – and groove on the sun and all its earthly consequences. The long, cold season so conducive to deep thought will return soon enough.

Tags: backyard nature, immediacy, summer, summer solstice, the sun, vegetation

Yesterday I finished turning over the soil in my so-called wildflower garden, removing all the plants from it, thus ending a four-year experiment. The time had come to admit my mistake.

I had visions of a small patch of wild forest in the corner of my otherwise tame property. A jumble of ground ivy, crabgrass, bindweed and dandelion emerged instead, choking out the daisies and other “wildflowers” that I had seeded there. Things don’t always work out as planned.

For four years I had successfully resisted the urge to pull weeds from that backyard plot – something I do religiously in the much more aesthetically pleasing garden in front of my house. In other words, I let nature take its course back there. Unfortunately, nature can be cruel.

Truth is, nature is neither kind nor cruel. It only seems that way when the wild world passes through the prism of our all-too-human values. That’s precisely where I went wrong. I thought I could drop the word “weed” from my vocabulary and the beauty of deep woods would magically appear in the corner of my city lot.

Soon my wife and I will put some shade-tolerant plants back there: bleeding hearts, columbine, and whatever woodland flowers we can find at the local nursery. Then I will cultivate the plot using methods as old as civilization itself, making it domestically beautiful. And that will have to do. After all, there’s no such thing as a wild garden.

Tags: backyard nature, cultivation, gardening, wild nature, wildness

For a walk like this, I don’t even bother putting on boots. Street shoes will do. The Rail Trail is so flat and easy to negotiate that I could wear flip flops if I wanted.

This is my third outing on the Rail Trail this week. I’ve been busy writing and working so the convenience of it has won out over any urge to wildness. Besides, the bloom of wildflowers has moved from the forest to the fields and I’m in the mood to groove on it.

Cow vetch, buttercups, red clover, and daisies populate the waist-high timothy along the edge if the trail, along with a host of less obvious wildflowers. I am intoxicated by the smell of them as I amble along slowly.  It is the distinct smell of early summer.

Robins, swallows and blackbirds shoot across the trail as I walk.  A gentle breeze rustles the deep green leaves of overhanging trees. Grass sways in the nearby fields, beneath a partly cloudy sky. Long rows of young corn, only a few inches high, add a sense of order to the muddy chaos of plowed fields. It’s a country scene and, for an hour or so, I am a countryman.

What is it about early summer that makes us so happy? Is it all the lush vegetation, the relaxed pleasure of being outdoors, or the promise of several months of easy living? Perhaps it’s best not to question it.  Simply be in the moment instead.

Next week I’ll grab my rucksack and head for the hills. But for now, in the cusp between springtime and summer, it’s enough to walk through a landscape that’s a little less than wild. The deep woods can wait.

Tags: rural landscape, summer, walking, wildflowers