Woods Wanderer

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

There are three words that make me especially uncomfortable:  spiritual, earthy, wild.  I use them all the time, in one context or another, but always with just a touch of apprehension.  All three words are loaded – fraught with meanings given them by thousands of naturalists before me.  Might as well add the word “naturalist” to the list.  I can’t even think about myself that way without feeling like something of a fraud.  I notice plants, watch wildlife, and read the landscape while wandering through the woods, but I’m no naturalist.  Not really.

What is spirituality?  These days many people call themselves spiritual instead of religious, thereby distancing themselves from organized religions while still asserting a belief in some kind of intangible reality.  Often such people claim a spiritual connection to the earth, though it’s never clear what this means.  No doubt it means different things to different people.  Yet the word “spiritual” implies the otherworldly, the ethereal, or a force transcending the physical.  How can a skeptic like me believe that such a realm actually exists?  There is no irrefutable proof one way or the other.

Someone says “earthy” to me and a groovy, long-haired dude and his girlfriend come to mind, both wearing clothes made with natural fibers.  I catch a whiff of patchouli every time I hear the word.  That and body odor.  Is that the Grateful Dead I hear playing in the background?  Why do I feel this sudden urge to dance barefoot while beating on a tambourine?  No, I’m not that earthy.  I’ve been known to hang upside down and naked from a tree branch overhanging a brook, splashing water into my face all the while, but most people would consider that kind of behavior strange, not earthy.  Especially if there are no drugs or alcohol involved.

As for wildness, well, we all know how vague that word is.  It means a thousand different things: unrestrained, untamed, out of control, or uncultivated to name only a few.  The word “wild” is as hard to pin down as words like “truth” or “love.”   My dog is utterly tame, yet there’s some wildness in her.  Same goes for me, or am I only deluding myself?  I obey traffic laws when I drive, file my taxes annually, and know how to behave myself in a social setting so how wild can I be?  How wild is the wilderness area in which I roam when it takes an act of congress to keep it from being developed?  How wild is wildlife when it’s being managed by biologists and bureaucrats?  How wild is a gun-toting, motorcycle barbarian when he’s wearing gang tattoos?  How wild can sex be when it’s only for fun?  The wild, it seems, has been turned inside out.

Whenever I hike alone, deep into wilderness for days on end, I feel more spiritual, earthy and wild.  That is, I feel a growing bond to the physical world, as well as to something reaching beyond the senses.  I shed the trappings of social convention like an old skin, and commune with a wilder society consisting of plants, animals, rocks, forest duff, water and wind.  In the wild, mud is no stranger to me.  Blood-sucking insects aren’t either.  In wilderness, the endless cycle of life and death is everywhere around me, so I can’t help but wonder what keeps it going.  Nature?  I can’t use that word any more without genuflecting.  I am astounded by the natural world.  I am rendered mute by the real.  It is so far beyond any civilized understanding that there’s no sense talking about it at all.

Tags: hiking alone, spirituality, the wild, wilderness

Modern living is complex, frustrating, and stressful.  The trail is something else.  So every once in a while, I fill my pack with a few essentials and head for the hills.  I go for a couple weeks, a couple days, or a few hours – whatever I can arrange.  Breaking away is the hard part.  Once I manage that, I’m home free.

It’s not as much escape as it is an act of simplification.  I step into the woods and life makes more sense almost immediately.  The daily routine here in the developed lowlands is full of noise, but silence reigns in the forest – a profound quiet in which I can hear myself think.  Some people go to great lengths to center themselves.  They sit in lotus positions for hours on end.  They pray, meditate, or simply clear their heads.  I just step into the woods.  Wild nature does the rest.

Woods wandering at its best is aimless.  Trail pounding, on the other hand, usually involves some kind of goal.  I prefer the former but resort to the latter on occasion.  Sometimes I hike hard for days, clock miles and go somewhere just for the sweaty pleasure of it.  Most hikers can relate to this.  The leap from modern living to trail pounding isn’t a great one.

Most hikers pound the trail for a few hours at a time.  Some do it for a few days, or as long as they can push their bodies full throttle.  Hiking longer than that requires a different mindset.  Given enough time, trail pounding can become a way of life – no longer just a means to an end.  Then the line between trail pounding and woods wandering begins to blur.

Coming back to the developed lowlands after twelve days of trail pounding, I swore I’d never hike that hard again.  I told anyone who’d listen that I’m getting too old for this, that long-distance hiking isn’t my thing any more.  And I believed it.  But now, a month and a half later, I’m feeling physically better and mentally worse, and trail pounding is starting to look good to me again.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to completely understand it, but the wild has a way of righting what’s wrong deep within.  Aching muscles and sore joints seem a small price to pay for that.  There are times when pounding the trail seems an utterly senseless undertaking – usually when I’m calf-deep in mud, badly bug-bitten, and bone tired.  But I keep going back to it, month after month, year after year.  As long as the profound quiet keeps working its magic on me, I’ll keep my hiking stick close at hand.

Tags: backpacking, hiking, spirituality, wilderness travel

I recently read an article in Scientific American titled “Squeezing More Oil from the Ground.”   Since Leonardo Maugeri, an Italian oil executive, wrote the piece, I approached it with great skepticism.  But Maugeri convinced me that another hundred year’s worth of oil can be extracted from the earth, using secondary and tertiary recovery methods.  Resourceful fellows, these oil barons.  As global demand increases and the price of oil rises, they’ll simply inject water, gas or thinning agents into the ground to push more oil to the surface.  So we don’t have to give up our gas-guzzling trucks and cars anytime soon.  That is, if global warming isn’t factored into the discussion.

Here in Vermont, we’re trying to decide whether or not to extend the license for our nuclear plant another twenty years, despite the fact that there’s been trouble with the cooling towers.  Those in favor of the extension argue that the cost of decommissioning the plant exceeds the funds allocated, so electric rates would have to go up to cover the difference.  What do you think?  How many things can you find wrong with this picture?

Meanwhile, a local newspaper is running a “green” section in its Sunday edition, celebrating the many different ways that individuals, cooperatives and small businesses are making the world a better place with their eco-conscious activities.  Rarely is there any talk about what large, “clean tech” corporations are doing, thus perpetuating the myth that the world’s environmental problems can only be solved by feel-good, grassroots organizations.

A year ago, the OPEC nations figured out that Westerners won’t grouse about the price of oil if it hovers around $70 a barrel, so now they are managing their supplies accordingly.  As long as the global recession persists, supply will continue outstripping demand.  Are we to assume that things will always be this way?

I could give more examples but this will do.  There is much talk in business circles these days about “forward thinking,” with all eyes towards productivity and profit, yet rarely is there any discussion beyond that.  In non-business circles, utopian dreams take the place of forward thinking, and people cultivate beliefs that business and government aren’t necessary, or that government can fix what business breaks.  Either way, they are sure to be disappointed.

When I step out of the woods, turning my attention away from mud, aching joints and biting flies, and towards what I find in the newspaper, I am amazed by the absurdity of it all.  The one constant in all the misery that humankind creates for itself is an utter lack of insight.  Forward thinking doesn’t really exist  – at least not in any meaningful sense.  So please excuse me for not taking a stand the next time some hot topic is being discussed.  It seems to me that, more often than not, we are having the wrong conversation.

Tags: change, clean tech, economics, green economy, politics

A month after hiking the 100 Mile Wilderness, I still feel the tug of the wild.  This wouldn’t be a problem if society weren’t pulling me in a different direction.  Oh sure, I have my circle of friends who know and love the wild as much as I do, but society at large seems to be disconnected from it.  And that puts every woods wanderer in a tight spot.

How can one maintain a connection to both society and the wild?  It’s tricky, to say the least.  I didn’t invent this conundrum.  Thoreau wrestled with it a hundred and fifty years ago, as did every other 19th Century woods wanderer.  Entire communities have arisen to address this problem.  Maybe I should join one.  But no, beneath every such community lurks a religious, social or political agenda of some sort.  And the one thing the wild teaches you is to go your own way.

A wild animal is, by definition, one that isn’t caged.  Same goes for a man or woman.  I ran wild for a couple weeks in the Maine Woods.  Now here I am, hustling to make a buck, promoting my so-called literary career, and trying my best to treat others decently in the process.  I get up every morning and read the newspaper.  My wife and I discuss the state of affairs over coffee and breakfast, then we set to work on one thing or another.  I’m rarely bored by society at large.  All the same, I can’t quite relate to it.

The health care fight and other congressional debacles; pirates, scam artists, ad men and drug traffickers; rogue nations with big missiles they call dongs; lawyers and lies; broke desperadoes living in motels; angry demonstrators raising their fists for peace and love – the list goes on.  Homo sapiens is, above all else, a patently absurd creature.  Am I any different?  Of course not, but at least I know what a fool I am.  Most people take themselves way too seriously.

Perhaps the word “alienation” is too strong.  It’s more of an inner tension, really, between conflicting interests and realities.  Don’t get me wrong.  I like being clean, dry and warm.  I like waking up next to my wife in a soft bed, making myself a cup of coffee with the mere push of a button, and eating whatever I feel like eating.  This cushy, utterly civilized life has its amenities, no doubt.  But there are times when my gut reacts violently to it.  There are times when I read something and feel an overwhelming desire to throw up.

Maybe it’s just the printer’s ink.  Maybe it’s those perfumed swatches inserted in newspapers and magazines that are making me sick.  Maybe I should stop reading altogether, go crawl into a hole and stay there.  But no, denial won’t resolve this matter.  Somehow, someway, I’ve got to bring the wild home and keep it there.  Somehow I have to bring society and the wild together.  Good luck with that!  Thoreau couldn’t do it.  What makes me think I can?

Tags: alienation, civilization, the human condition, the wild, Thoreau

Judy and I were returning home from a late dinner out the other day when we looked up and saw the Milky Way splayed across the sky.  No moon, not even the wisp of a cloud anywhere, and the sun was long gone.  Thousands of stars glittered overhead.  Judy suggested that I pull out my telescope for a quick look.  I noticed that there were no bugs out and the air temperature was nearly ideal, so I did just that.

I pointed the instrument at the brightest object in the southeastern sky, thinking it could be Jupiter.  Sure enough, it was.  Once I centered that planet and its four biggest moons in the eyepiece, Judy took a look.  I told her that she was seeing what Galileo saw with his telescope four hundred years ago: another planet and its satellites – the first hard evidence that the Earth isn’t the center of the universe.  I think she was impressed, not so much by my words but by the image itself.  Yeah, when it comes to astronomy, seeing really is believing.

Judy has encouraged my stargazing over the years but hasn’t taken much interest in it herself.  Quickly sweeping through the sky, I looked for nebulae, recalling how impressive they looked to me when I first saw them.  I wanted to wow my wife.  I had no star map in hand, though, so I gave up that hunt before Judy lost all interest.  I went looking for Andromeda Galaxy, instead.  The Great Square was in clear view directly overhead, so finding Andromeda wasn’t too hard.  All I had to do was follow a familiar path away from the Square with my binoculars.

When finally I got Andromeda Galaxy in sight, I showed it to Judy.  She saw only a fuzzy spot in the eyepiece.  I told her that was all she was going to see with my humble instrument, then reminded her that she was looking at an object two and a half million light years away.  Numbers like that are difficult for anyone to grasp, though, so I expounded:  When the light now reaching her eye left Andromeda, our ancestors were just starting to use stone tools.  But even that was a gross understatement.  Spacetime defies all description, really.  All we can do is approximate it.

Nature is all around us all the time – no farther away than the blades of grass underfoot, the bee buzzing past, or the breeze caressing our brows.  We have come to know it well through our senses, and nearly everyone knows intuitively the difference between what is natural and what is man-made.  But there’s a greater nature out there that requires our reasoning skills as well as our senses to understand, where the boundary between the concrete and the abstract is blurred, where cosmic forces are hard at work and objects are much, much farther away than they appear.  I for one can’t gaze deep into the night sky without thinking about God, about nature with a capital “N.”  Someday I will wander aimlessly through that wilderness as I do the woods.  Someday I will wander and wonder without physical restriction.  Someday.

Tags: astronomy, nature, reason, science, stargazing, the night sky

You aren’t supposed to talk about it.  You’re considered a pessimist if you do.  But when the leaves start to turn in early autumn, I can’t help but consider the fleeting nature of things, the passing of days, my own mortality.

Three weeks after leaving the trail, my right knee still complains.  My ankles are still shaky, as well.  My body just doesn’t spring back the way it used to.  In my 50s now, I suppose it’s unrealistic for me to expect that it would.  Still, these nagging joints are constant reminders of a fact I’d rather ignore: I’m not going to live forever.

Unlike me, my 4-year old German shepherd dog, Matika, is stronger now than she was when we hit the trail a month ago.  I toss a rubber ball, it bounces on the hard, dry ground, and she leaps into the air after it with unbridled joy.  I vicariously enjoy her blatant demonstrations of physical prowess.  But deep down inside, I know how temporary it all is.  I’ll have to be lucky to have her by my side on a hike ten years from now – real lucky.

Moving stone.  I helped my neighbor cart and shovel two tons of drainage stone this week, placing it around his mobile home in a foot-wide skirt.  It serves no purpose but he likes the look of it.  The job made me feel like Sisyphus but he was happy in the thick of the task, as if having something to do was reason enough to get up in the morning.  I suppose that, at 86 years of age, one takes one’s small pleasures wherever one finds them.

A literary friend of mine died recently.  I read about it in the newspaper.  We weren’t close, but we liked to get together on occasion to talk about nature, literature and politics over tea.   I’ve been meaning to call her.  Where did the time go?  I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye.

Yes, the leaves are turning now.  I find the transition between summer and fall both sad and beautiful.  I want to go for a long walk in the woods soon, kicking up the brilliant red, yellow and orange leaves with each step, and smelling it – smelling the passing of days.  Strangely enough, I’m not nearly as afraid of it as I was as a young man.  Back then springtime was the only season I could really appreciate.  But things change.

Tags: awareness, reflection, seasonal change

Judy and I now call our dog, Matika, the 100 Mile Wilderness Dog.  Not only did she accompany me on that trek but she carried her own pack most of the way.  She carried about 6-8 pounds in a two-pouch dog pack that vaguely resembles a saddlebag.  That was roughly half of the extra weight that her companionship cost me.  Despite all my complaints about being overloaded on my trek, the few extra pounds I carried on her behalf were well worth the trouble.

Not all dogs are suited for long-distance, backcountry travel.  Small dogs can’t make the trip for obvious reasons.  Really hairy dogs are too easily overheated.  Others simply aren’t strong enough or nimble enough on their feet to do it.  Matika passed the trail’s tests with flying colors.  Most of the time, she was 20 yards ahead of me and rarin’ to go.  “Wait, Tika, wait!” became a common refrain during the course of the day.  Whenever she heard it, she would stop, turn around and wait until I gave her the release command.  Usually she was higher up an ascending trail than me and all smiles.  Sometimes that irritated me to no end.

Most dogs aren’t disciplined enough to travel the trail.  Matika has learned over past the 3 years, since Judy and I rescued her from an animal shelter, that commands are not negotiable.  She’s no robot, but she minds me most of the time.  When she and I approach other hikers and I shout: “Back,” she knows to get behind me.  When I say “Sit” or “Stay,” she does what she’s told.  Her obedience is absolutely essential whenever we’re in the wild.  Someday it could be the difference between life and death.

Early in the trip, Matika fell 8 feet off a boulder, while negotiating a particularly tricky section of trail.  Fortunately, she landed on her feet in soft forest duff so she wasn’t injured.  After that, she was much more wary of tight spots in the rocks, exposed cliffs, rotten boardwalk, stream crossings, and any object in the trail that she couldn’t see over.  She would stop and wait for me to lead the way.  I wouldn’t even have to give her a command.  Good dog!  We got into a rhythm after a while and were able to tackle anything that came along.  I carried her pack whenever we forded a deep stream or navigated steep uphill and downhill sections.  I picked her up and lifted her over fallen trees and big rocks whenever it was too much for her to handle.  She learned to trust me implicitly.

Chasing chipmunks was the only thing she did that pissed me off on a regular basis.  At first I let it go, thinking she’d never catch them anyway.  Then it occurred to me that she might hurt her feet while bounding recklessly after them through the cluttered woods.  That’s when I invented a new command:  “No chipmunks!”  I barked it whenever her ears perked up at the tempting chatter of those little critters.  The command didn’t quite take.  We’ll have to work on that one.  Yeah, that means Matika will be accompanying me on all future treks.  She’s obedient for the most part, strong, agile and has her trail legs now.  And I thoroughly enjoy her company.  Animals make the best trail companions, I think.  They’re more in tune with their surroundings than most humans, take to the wild faster, and don’t talk all the time.  What else could a woods wanderer ask for?  A little less chipmunk obsession, that’s all.

Tags: hiking with dogs, wilderness travel

Supply is the great challenge of the 100 Mile Wilderness.  This seems a rather abstract and unimportant consideration until you lift an all-too-heavy pack to your back and try to hike 10 miles with it.  Like many of those who have taken on this challenge over the years, I trimmed what I could from my load then shouldered the weight.  This decision set the tone for my trek.

AT thru-hikers running north from Georgia travel with the minimum amount of food and equipment.  Most of them have ultra-light gear and that alone sheds ten or more pounds from the load.  Since they’re accustomed to hiking 15 to 20 miles a day, they traverse the 100 Mile Wilderness in 6 to 8 days, sometimes less, even though there are signs posted at both ends urging backpackers to carry at least a ten-day supply of food.  I encountered one fellow who had only a four-day supply.  He was resigned to hiking long days and going hungry –– a regrettable strategy if anything goes wrong along the way.

Some backpackers get creative.  They have a support team that drives up one of the many logging roads in the area and supplies them on the run, or they pay the folks at Shaws Boarding House to do this.  Others take a side trail to Pemadumcook Lake, where they sound a horn and the folks at Whites Landing motor over by boat to pick them up.  At Whites Landing you can pretty much get whatever you want… for a price.  The owners advertise it as “an oasis in the 100 Mile Wilderness” and many hikers use them that way.

Make no mistake about it, the Maine woods are magnificent woods, and the 100 Mile Wilderness – that section of the Appalachian Trail cutting through the heart of it – is as wild and beautiful as any sprawling forest can be.  But its remoteness should not be underestimated.  I started into those woods with a 65-pound pack and cursed this ridiculous load all the way, even as it grew lighter.  Then again, I was completely self-sufficient, never having to rely upon AT shelters or anything else.  In that regard, it was a bona fide backpacking trip.

The logistic challenge of this trek was interesting enough, but next time I venture into the woods for an extended period of time, I’ll do things a little differently.  My big regret is that I spent too much time pounding the trail, racing against my dwindlng supplies.  Next time I’ll hike ten or twenty miles into the woods and land somewhere for a few days.  After all, what’s the point of being out there if you’re not going to take the time to groove on the wild?

Tags: 100 Mile Wilderness, Appalachian Trail, backpacking, Maine woods, wilderness travel

After a couple nights sleep in a bed, hot showers and an abundance of fresh food, my excursion into the Maine woods seems like something of a dream.  But l have a swollen knee and aching ankles, along with plenty of scratches, bug bites, bruises and rashes, to assure me that it actually did happen. I also have a journal full of notes to jog my memory, so you can be sure I’ll be writing about this journey in great detail during the months to come.  That is, after all, what I do.

The 100 Mile Wilderness is everything it’s touted to be:  a long, winding trail through the wild, northern forest of Maine, full of pristine lakes and ponds, roaring brooks, huge bogs, and rugged mountains.  All very boreal, of course, so moss grows on everything, conifers create a somber mood, and the trail is easily worn down to roots and rocks.  My boots never completely dried out and some of my hiking clothes, well, it was best just to throw them away when I returned home.  This is not a trail for the faint of heart.

The 100 Mile Wilderness isn’t a wilderness per se.  It gets its name from the fact that you can’t obtain supplies on the Appalachian Trail north out of the town of Monson until you reach a campground at Abol Bridge a hundred miles away.  That makes it quite a challenge, logistically speaking.  Everyone hiking this section of trail is either overloaded or running short of supplies.  This is considered the wildest, most remote section of the entire AT, and that is precisely why I wanted to hike it.

Most AT thru hikers blasting north from Georgia hike the 100 Mile Wilderness in 6 to 8 days.  The average section hiker does it in about 10.  I hiked it in 12 days because that was the maximum amount of food that I could carry for my dog and myself – 30 pounds total.  Between this weight, the ruggedness of the terrain, and my dubious physical condition, the trek tested the limits of my physical endurance.  That said, I only wish I could have taken more time to be out there, so that I could have enjoyed some of the beautiful places I visited more than I did.  Among my favorite places: the sandy beaches of Nahmakanta Lake, the crystal clear East Chairback Pond, Gulf Hagas Stream, and North Pond.  I easily could have spent several days in any one of those places.  Each is a slice of paradise.

I now understand better why Henry David Thoreau was fixated upon the sprawling forest of northern Maine during the latter part of his life, and why so many other outdoors enthusiasts are drawn to it.  Nowhere else this side of the Mississippi will you find such big woods – not even in the Adirodacks.  There were times when, standing on a mountaintop or exposed ledges, the wild stretched before me as far as the eye could see.  Loggers are hard at work in those woods, and guide service float planes aren’t uncommon, but this country is wild all the same.  It’s a country meant for all those who want, for a few days, a week or longer, to run feral. Bear and moose thrive there and, for 12 days, so did I.

Tags: 100 Mile Wilderness, backpacking, Maine woods, wilderness travel