Woods Wanderer

Yesterday I slipped into the woods with my dog, Matika, hungry for a challenging hike.  I went to a nearby patch of wild country called French Hill.  Since it’s only a few miles square, and familiar terrain for the most part, I didn’t bother carrying a compass.  After all, I’ve been in there many times before.

When I was younger, I religiously carried a compass even on familiar trails.  My hiking companions have marveled at this quirk over the years.  It seems so unnecessarily cautious.  But I know from experience how easy it is to get turned around in the woods, especially if one is in the habit of leaving the trail and bushwhacking cross country as I am.  On lengthy excursions into big woods, I still carry a compass.  Locally though, I’ve gotten into the habit of doing without.

Frogs and toads jumped out of the way as Matika and I charged down the overgrown logging trail.  A great deal of rain has fallen in Vermont during the past couple months and the understory is thicker than usual.  No matter.  We forged ahead, dodging ruts full of water as we ventured deep into the woods. We picked up a fresh set of moose tracks and followed them even deeper, both of us excited when we passed a fresh pile of droppings.  Then I lost the moose tracks along with any semblance of a trail.  No matter.  I navigated by sun, gradually bearing south towards a known beaver pond.  I was confident that I’d stumble into familiar turf soon.

French Hill is more of a long, wide ridge than a hill, with plenty of knolls and ravines.  It’s a good place to get turned around, actually, and that’s exactly what happened when the sun slipped behind the clouds.  The maze of ATV trails that I ran into didn’t help.  I followed them until I was thoroughly disoriented.  I kept reaching for the compass that wasn’t there.  Still, I was too proud to pop out of the woods when I spotted a house.  I knew there would be a road just beyond it, but I was determined to exit the woods at the same point where I had entered.  So I turned away.

I wandered around for a while, ripping my pants in some thick brambles and taking lots of scratches.  I kept my cool, still confident that I’d stumble into familiar terrain.  Then I slipped in a mud hole and fell down, ramming the butt of a downed tree into my side.  That’s when I took the situation seriously.  I sat down and carefully considered my next move.

Matika was not happy.  Neither was I.  With a heavy sigh, I accepted the fact that it was time to follow a “lost azimuth” due south to the road.  I used the moss growing at the base of trees to maintain a steady southern bearing.  Imagine my chagrin when I popped out of the woods at the exact same house I’d turned away from an hour earlier.

Yeah, I got my challenging hike, and then some.  Good workout, and good training for a big hike in Maine next month.  But never again will I enter the woods without my compass.  Let my hiking companions marvel at the primitive device dangling from a lanyard around my neck – I don’t care.  No bushwacker with any sense steps into backcountry without one.

Tags: bushwhacking, land navigation, quirks

Once a year, Judy and I run a summer camp for our older grandkids, ages 4 through 12.  No parents allowed.  We’ve been doing this since 2004 and each year our plans get a little more sophisticated, with organized games, arts and crafts, and a theme of some sort.  But it’s the simple things that make the get-together work – things like running barefoot in the grass, being goofy, and drinking lemonade in the shade of our old maple tree.  The rest is just window dressing.

This year, I went a little crazy building a temporary, two-story playhouse out of wood that I called a space ship.  Judy spent the better part of an afternoon painting it.  The kids loved it, of course, but not as much as sleeping in the tent, swimming or fishing.  These activities are the staples of summer camp despite our elaborate constructs.

I took some of the kids for a hike up Aldis Hill while Judy picked strawberries with the rest.  The girls picked daisies from our wildflower garden and put them in the playhouse.  Several days later, the flowers are still there, still blooming in a paper cup full of water.   On the last day of summer camp, the kids collected shells and rocks while Judy and I set up a picnic lunch on the shore of Lake Champlain.  I showed the youngest ones how to skip stones across the water’s surface.  This is a skill every child should have.

Electronic devices are encroaching upon summer camp.  Judy and I are doing our best to keep them at bay.  It isn’t easy.  Cell phones, ipods and hand-held computer games are a big part of a child’s world these days.  All the same, a boy or a girl will drop everything and chase a frog halfway across the yard when given the chance.  If they’ve learned how to spot it, that is.

Our day lilies opened up the same day that the Virginia half of the family arrived.  Hummingbirds visited Judy’s feeder while they were here, as well.  Bees gathered pollen from the flowers in the front yard garden.  Thunderstorms came and went.  We casually pointed out the beauty and wonder of all these things as the children played.  It’s a subtle form of indoctrination, I suppose.

Judy and I don’t care if the kids remember the details of our annual get-togethers or not, as long as they remember the laughter, loving and all encompassing green.  Various phrases are used to describe this somewhat complex concept but, in my humble opinion, it all comes down to one word: summer.  Let the children know that much and the world will be a better place.  Sometimes it’s the simple things that make the difference.

Tags: backyard nature, camping with children, summer

Last week I hiked up Bamforth Ridge.  Stretching six miles from the Winooski River to the top of Camel’s Hump, this ridge is the longest, hardest base-to-summit climb in Vermont.  I figured it would be a good place to train for my upcoming Maine trek – a good place to test my limits, that is.  On that count I wasn’t disappointed.

I puffed halfway up the ridge before the hike became difficult.  Then I pushed myself another mile uphill, overcoming gravity by sheer force of will until reaching an exposed knob with a nearly 360-degree view.  Good enough.  I broke for lunch with the summit still looming large in front of me.  Then I turned back.

Going uphill was relatively easy – just a matter of will.  Going downhill was another matter.  Knees don’t lie.  With each step they reminded me that my strongest hiking days have passed.  A walking stick helped, but there’s no getting around the physical reality of a half century of wear and tear, as much as a forever-young Baby Boomer like me wants to deny it.

Yesterday I finished reading a book by Lester Brown called Eco-Economy.  It’s a rehash of his somewhat Malthusian notions concerning the limits of growth – concepts that I first encountered back in college in the 70s.  Industrialization and population are outpacing food production and other natural resources.  No big news there.  But what bothered me is just how little progress we’ve made during the past thirty-odd years.  Well into the 21st Century now, we’re still having the same eco-arguments.  Meanwhile, the math worsens and collective human misery keeps rising.  Being that I belong to the sixth of humanity that’s on top of the heap, I probably shouldn’t worry about it.  But I do.

My grandson, Mason, came to me the other day wearing a green bush hat and said with a great big smile:  “I’m just like you, Grandpa!”  I nodded my head, acknowledging that he is.  Mason loves being outdoors.  When he was three, he cried when his Mommy made him go back inside.  At five, he’s ready to plunge deep into the woods, to take on the world.  Soon he’ll be on the trail with me.

I still have work to do.  I don’t know how but somehow I have to help break the deadlock that exists in human affairs.  Old arguments, polarized stances and antiquated worldviews must be abandoned in favor of something that actually works – something that will make the world a better place for all the Masons out there.  The time has come to be pragmatic, meet enemies halfway, and get things done.  Thirty years of the same old eco-arguments, for chrissakes.  Talk is cheap.

Bamforth Ridge kicked my ass, but I’m ready to do it all over again.  I’m ready for another big hike.  I’m still moving despite the passage of time.  Hard to say whether my kind and I will ever get anywhere, but we’re moving all the same.  No sense stopping.  And when we’re done, Mason and his generation will carry on.  Why shouldn’t they?  Time passes, but it’s never too late to take on the world.

Tags: adversity, change, hiking, Malthus, the human condition, time

I read in the paper the other day that Alaskan state officials have cracked down on a guy named Charlie Vandergaw for feeding the bears.  Evidently, he’s been doing this for quite some time now.  Vandergaw lives by himself in a remote cabin and has befriended large, wild browns to the point where he can pet them. He’s been featured on a cable television network called Animal Planet.  No doubt he has plenty of fans.  But officials at Alaska Fish and Game can’t abide by it, so he’s been charged with illegally feeding game and could face a $10,000 fine or a year in jail for it.

Anyone who has a bird feeder in the back yard or who has tossed a nut to a chipmunk creeping into camp can relate to Vandergaw, I’m sure.  We all know we’re not supposed to make wild animals dependent upon us for food, but it’s hard to resist feeding them.  They’re so cute.  Besides, there’s something about the tentative approach of a cautious creature that urges us to share our abundance.  But a bear once fed will look again to humans for a free meal.  What happens if an unsuspecting picnicker doesn’t comply?  Everything is all very warm and fuzzy on Animal Planet, but sometimes our furry buddies get ugly off camera.  That’s what the Alaskan officials are thinking about, anyhow.

Cockeyed libertarians look at the situation and see the government oppressing a gentle, old man who’s not hurting anyone.  Calloused Alaskans believe the grizzlies will eventually turn on Vandergaw.  Still others see this as a strange form of profiteering.  After all, someone had to pay for the ton and a half of dog food that our TV grizzly man has provided.  All this misses the point, I think.  My question is this:  When does the wild cease being the wild?

We’re all guilty of it.  Nature lovers have their preserves.  Scientists have their tranquilizing guns and radio collars.  Hunters want the wild managed to optimize conditions for their prey.  Urban planners have their green spaces.  Even materialistic, money-mad developers, who clearly don’t give a damn about wild nature, still like manicured gardens and golf courses.  We all want a piece of the wild under our thumb.  It’s hard to leave it alone.  And why should we?

Heaven on earth is often depicted as a place where the lion lies down with the lamb.  This biblical notion has infected all of us more than we realize.  One could argue that it’s written into the very definition of civilization.  “Peace on earth” and “dog eat dog” are mutually exclusive concepts, aren’t they?  Why not turn the entire planet into a garden and make all creatures our pets?

I don’t want to belabor this point.  I’m sure that you can see quite clearly where I’m going with all this.  I read about some guy chumming up to Alaskan browns and a part of me, having been exposed to them once, wants to do the same.  Then it occurs to me how easy it is to love something to death.  Truth is, in order for something to be truly wild it has to remain beyond our control.  And that’s a concept we all find difficult to accept.

Tags: Alaska, bears, civilization, domestication, morality, the wild, wild nature

Because it was Judy’s vacation, we went to the Maine coast.  I’m more a creature of deep woods, but it’s not always about me.  Judy has a challenging job.  When she needs to get away from it all, the coast is the best place for her to go.  So we rented a cottage and escaped to it for a few days.

The cottage faces an estuary – one of ten estuaries along a fifty-mile stretch of coast known collectively as the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge.  We couldn’t afford a place overlooking the beach.  That’s okay.  After a couple days of gazing out the window, watching the estuary fill with saltwater then drain again, this cottage seemed like the best place for us.  It is easy to fixate upon the oceanic horizon, ignoring the rising and falling tides just below the line of sight.  But the rhythms of the sea are dramatic and inescapable just a little farther inland, where six hours is all that separates a flooded salt marsh from a muddy one.

A chilling rain fell steadily for three days.  That kept the sun worshipers off the coast, leaving more room for us.  Wherever we went, whether it was the beach, a rocky stretch of coastline, or in town, we were pretty much alone.  Just the two of us.  Steady rain has its advantages.

Judy was happy enough walking the beach or resting in the cottage.  Other than that all she required was a big bowl of fresh steamers chased with cold beer.  I had binoculars in hand most of the time.  I don’t think of myself as a birdwatcher but birdwatching is hard to resist on the coast.  Along with the ever-present gulls, I glassed ducks, eiders, cormorants, and herons just off shore.  A fast-running plover entertained us as we walked the beach.  A gaggle of Canada geese kept to the salt marsh for the most part.  A snowy egret fished alone in the estuary the entire time we were there.  Good company.

Days passed.  The water kept rising and falling in the estuary.  The ocean withdrew from the beach, leaving countless shells behind only to reclaim them a few hours later.  Waves crashed to shore at high tide, washing away the tracks we left in the sand.  When the tide receded, I felt a part of me drawn towards liquid oblivion – as if I too was being swept away.  The sea is like that.  It wants to reclaim all that belongs to her, all things organic.  Even a landlubber like me can feel it: caught in the rhythm, in a primordial magnetism.

Tags: Atlantic Ocean, birdwatching, Maine coast, shorebirds, tides

Judy loves hummingbirds but it has been years since she last saw one.  Two summers ago, she purchased a hummingbird feeder and hung it from the lilac bush a few feet from our kitchen window.  That allowed me a close-up glimpse of one once but Judy wasn’t so lucky.  So for the third year in a row she hung the feeder, hoping for the best.  I knew better than to encourage or discourage her.

Judy loves hummingbirds.  She loves them so much that she has one tattooed right above her ankle.  She says that every time she has seen one she has been on some kind of vacation – with me in the Adirondacks, with a friend on the Maine coast, or elsewhere.  More than once she has seen them at rest and has meditated on the fact that even a creature as frenetic as a hummingbird must stop every once in a while.  Seeing them when her own life was frenetic, she too has stopped.  There is a time for wingbeat intensity and a time to rest.

Many years ago, when I was alone in the Alaskan bush, I awoke almost daily to the low-pitched buzzing sound of a hummingbird hovering just outside my tent.  Even then Judy had an affinity for hummingbirds, so I couldn’t help but think that her animal spirit was watching over me.  Nowadays I can’t see a hummingbird or the mere image of one without thinking of her.  Judy’s existence and the essence of that tiny bird are somehow bound together.  Don’t ask me to explain how I know this or why it is so.  Some things go beyond words.

A couple days ago Judy put up her hummingbird feeder, hoping for the best.  She put up a fuchsia plant next to it, thinking that that might help attract the little busybodies.  She was right.  Yesterday, just before dusk, I looked out the kitchen window and saw a female.  Judy saw it a few minutes later, delighting in the encounter.  This morning, we both saw a male hummingbird at the feeder, repeatedly.  It looks like Judy has finally succeeded in attracting them to our home.  That makes this a red-letter day.

There are times when the wild is in our faces, and other times when it seems elusive.  Always it keeps us off-balance, somewhat amazed, unsure what to expect next.  That is the wonder and beauty of it.  Few creatures illustrate this as well as a hummingbird does, flitting around with such erratic intensity.  Maybe that is why Judy, wife of a woods wanderer, loves them so much.

Tags: backyard nature, birdwatching, hummingbirds, the wild

Even though I don’t consider myself a materialist, I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about money.  Who hasn’t?  For most of us living in middle-class America these days, money is more about survival than it is the endless acquisition of goods.  My wife, Judy, and I are concerned about keeping a roof over our heads, food in the cupboards and the other basics of life.  We worry about future prospects for some kind of retirement, health care, and all the rest of it.  These are hard times, certainly – not nearly as bad as the Great Depression, we are told, but worse than anything we’ve ever seen before.  And we keep wondering when it’s all going to turn around.

The other day Judy remarked that springtime seems especially beautiful this year.  I agree, it is.  Why is that?  I suspect that it has something to do with survival, with all the time and energy we’ve devoted to money matters since the economy took a turn for the worse.  After a long pow-wow about cutting back our expenses, just in case, we looked up from our porch chairs and were pleasantly surprised to find the world just as beautiful as it has always been – as if money doesn’t matter at all.  How strange.

Money does matter, and what we are experiencing in America these days is what most of the people on this planet deal with every day.  Many of them are worse off than the average unemployed American – much, much worse off.  I read somewhere recently that a billion people go to bed hungry every night.  That’s almost one in six people.  Simple facts like this keep things in perspective.

How dare I ramble on and on about the wonders of wild nature while a billion bellies are growling, when the future is so uncertain!  Sometimes I am ashamed of my wild thoughts and feel guilty about the long walks in the woods that I enjoy while so many people are suffering.  Then someone else mentions the scent of lilacs in the air, the rat-a-tat of a woodpecker knocking, or the luxuriant feel of a handful of dirt.  Then I nod my head in deep reverence.  These are things that keep us going.  These are things that matter.

What is the point of living if there is no joy in it?  What is easier to enjoy than a colorful sunset, a cool breeze in the morning, a few notes sung by a songbird, or anything green?  When one’s belly is full, of course.  I don’t know how to turn the economy around or how to fix all the world’s woes, but I do know that we’ll be in deep trouble the day we loose our appetite for the simple pleasures of life.  Without it we would be only so many desperados bouncing off each other in search of a quick fix.  So let’s try to enjoy the things commonly found in nature even as we take care of the difficult business at hand.

Tags: economics, the human condition, wild nature

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

After weeks of alternating rain and sunshine, the grass is a fuller, deeper green than it’s been in six months.  But that’s not what’s captured my attention lately.  Not really.  I am awestruck by the leaf-out all around me – in the bushes, in the trees, and across the forest floor.  It is so sudden and overwhelming that I find it difficult to think of anything else when my eyes fall upon it.  And yes, it feels sudden, even though I had all of April to anticipate it.  Nothing could have prepared me for this kind of green, even though I’ve seen it fifty times before.

Vernal green, Kelly green, the green of a living landscape long since dormant and springing to action.  Wizard of Oz green – a brown and gray world bursting into Technicolor vitality overnight, too green to be real.  I first noticed the green unfurling while running my dog a week or so ago.  A maple leaf no bigger than my thumb rolled out of its bud and yawned.  All I could do was stand there amazed by it.  But now I’ve gone beyond that even.  Now I’m completely overwhelmed.

What kind of world is this, anyway?  How can there be so much green where there was only bleached forest detritus, dark mud and naked branches only a few weeks ago?  I go about my daily affairs the best I can, but all this green distracts me.  I fight back the urge to cast off my clothes and dance through the lilies like some feral naturist drunk on life.  I make a list for the day, look at my watch and pretend that I have it all under control.  But this green unfurling is making mincemeat of my reasoning powers.

Every other day is built around a stint of woods wandering, however brief.  The rest of my life is just some kind of muddling through, a sleepwalk of sorts, full of numbers, ideas and other abstractions.  Head down I start my walks.  Five or ten minutes into them, I look up and see the luminescent green.  Then and only then am I fully aware of being alive.  And my first impression is always the same:  This remarkable world is too beautiful for me to run roughshod over it the way I do.  What was I thinking?

But enough blather already.  A cardinal calls me out even as I write this.  I’ve gotta go.  And maybe, just maybe, after I’ve seen enough songbirds and wildflowers amid the green, I’ll be able to get something constructive done today.  Not that it matters.  Life needs no excuse to exist.  In that regard, I am no exception to the rule.

Tags: awareness, existence, springtime, vernal green, wild nature

People naturally assume that I’m eager to save the planet from the ravages of industrialism, protect all endangered species from extinction, and preserve as much wild forest as possible.  Surely someone as passionate about wild nature as I am must be an environmental activist, or so the conventional line of reasoning goes.  This assumption is made by liberals and conservatives alike, and confusion registers visibly in their faces when I deny it.  And when I add that I reject “-Ist” and “-Ism” altogether, that I’m too much of a philosopher to be truly political, most people peg me as a fence-sitter and leave it at that.  Who can blame them?  Action is what matters in this world of ours.  Words are only words.

I studied too much political theory back in college – that’s the problem.  I learned all I could learn about Socialism, Fascism, Republicanism, Democracy, Theocracy and the rest of it.  I even cultivated my own alternative political philosophy for a while.  But all that is just theory.  Politics is the concentration and exercise of power to project one’s own cherished values onto the world.  Ideology is merely the excuse needed to get the job done, to mobilize other people to action.  As a would-be propagandist and pamphleteer, I see right through the advertisements, both left and right.  In other words, I know bullshit when I see it, and no “Ism” is an exception to the rule, not even Anarchism.

Generally speaking, I am reluctant to voice this opinion of mine – and that’s all it is, really – because there’s no advantage in offending nearly everyone else on the planet.  But make no mistake about it, I don’t care to wave any flag, even one with a picture of Mother Earth on it.

While activists break into two distinct camps, warring with each other in the political arena, global warming continues, thousands of species disappear, and the wild forest grows smaller. When the liberals are in power, laws are passed protecting the environment – keeping Big Business from trashing it, that is.  When the conservatives are in power, those laws are rescinded or new ones are passed, enabling businessmen to profit from the use and abuse of natural resources no matter what.  Back and forth the pendulum swings, year-in and year-out.  To what end?  Do you really believe that one side will ultimately win this battle?  Do you really think that an activist of any stripe can do anything that can’t be undone?

What’s at stake here is quality of life – the quality of our lives, not those of trees, whales or spotted owls.  It’s really more a matter of economics, not politics.  When enough people grasp the true cost of their shopping mall world, and what is lost in the process of perpetuating it, there will be little resistance to salvaging what’s left of the wild.  Most people act in their own best interest.  All any real lover of wild things needs to do is show them exactly what’s at stake.  Then nature will take its course.

Tags: economics, nature, philosophy, politics