Woods Wanderer

A copy of Adirondac, the Adirondack Mountain Club publication, appeared in my mailbox the other day. I immediately cracked it open and looked for some provocative article to read. The ADK rarely disappoints on that count. I found an article titled “There’s a Reason for the Rules,” in which a club member defended some of the more controversial DEC regulations recently applied to the Eastern High Peaks. My blood boiled right away.

Last year I shelled out seventy bucks for a bear resistant canister so that I could legally backpack into the Dix Mountain Wilderness, which I believe is subject to Eastern High Peaks rules. Yep, that’s right. Can’t just sling my food bag in the trees like I have for the past 30-odd years. Gotta have a big, heavy plastic can for the bears to kick around. Well, okay. Bears are a problem in the High Peaks, so I went along with it. Then I returned home from my trip to find out I could have been issued a fine anyway, for building a campfire out there and having my dog off leash.

Right now I have backpacking gear laid out on the floor of an extra bedroom. I’m getting ready for a 5-day excursion into the Adirondacks – with my dog, of course. We won’t be going to the High Peaks, that’s for certain. The DEC rules are more relaxed in every other part of the Adirondack Park. I will land in a place where few people go, build a campfire the size of a pie pan, and stare into it for a several hours after cooking my dinner on it. I call this meditation. Others call it a violation of backcountry ethics.

I fully understand the need to regulate high-use areas like the High Peaks. On many occasions I have hiked the battered trails leading to the Park’s highest summits. Often I have passed so many people on the trail that it hardly felt like a wilderness experience at all. I’ve seen neophyte backpackers drag small trees to fire pits and torch them as if deep woods is the perfect place for a bonfire. I’ve seen dogs chase deer to exhaustion, wild animals open up backpacks full of food, and mountain streams tainted by soap suds. I’ve personally picked up enough trash scattered around shelters to fill my car once over, at least.

Yeah, I know exactly what the rules are for, but I also know that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) is a state bureaucracy that thrives on the endless creation of rules, and that there are enough eco-fundamentalist zealots in both the DEC, the ADK, and elsewhere to impose fixed, one-way worldviews on the rest of us. And anyone who objects is a selfish, nature-hating troglodyte.

Where will the rules end? You can use your cell phone in case of an emergency, by the way. Think about it. Cell phones and bear cans are in; campfires are out. This is not the natural world of John Muir, Henry David Thoreau or Verplanck Colvin. This is the wild managed, the backcountry with signs telling you what you can and cannot do, the canned wilderness experience. Must it come to this?

Next week I’ll go deep into the woods with my dog, doing my best to avoid contact with the rule-makers of all stripes who dominate the civilized world. I desperately need a break from their bullshit. And when the DEC starts breathing down my neck this year or next, I’ll go elsewhere, to more remote places, like a mountain lion or a grizzly bear, until there’s no truly wild country left. I, too, am on the endangered species list it seems. That’s okay. Nothing’s meant to last forever – not even wilderness or those who thrive in it.

Tags: Adirondacks, backcountry ethics, the wild, wilderness

It’s time to seek out a blank spot on the map and lose myself in it. I’ve reached a point where short excursions into the woods aren’t working for me anymore. This happens every year or two. I get up, go about my daily affairs as cheerfully as I can and pretend that I’m just like everyone else. But down deep I’m fighting back the urge to rip off my clothes, howl at the moon, then disappear into the forest.

This thing called civilization, with all its written and unwritten rules, is a prison to me now. I’m just counting the days until I can escape. Soon I hope to venture deep into the Adirondacks by myself. Just me and my dog, that is, who understands my urges. Already I can hear the loons.

One never breaks completely free of civilization, but it’s possible to go deep enough into wild country where other people become largely irrelevant. A brief encounter with another backwoods traveler; a few minutes of polite conversation with a pair of backpackers; perhaps even an exchange of information about weather or trail conditions with some solitary soul. Nothing more than that. Society is precisely what needs to be left behind.

Not a day goes by now that I don’t think about West Canada Lakes Wilderness. I first visited it in 2002. I wandered through it while hiking the Northville-Placid Trail a couple years ago. It’s the biggest wilderness area in the Adirondacks and one of the largest roadless areas east of the Mississippi. I miss it the way most people miss home when they’ve been away from it for a long time. I’ve blocked out a week next month to go there, so all I have to do is hang tight until then. Easier said than done.

Once the wild has gotten under your skin, there’s no going back to who you were before. Not really. I’ve been dealing with this ever since I left the Alaskan bush sixteen summers ago. In a sense, a part of me never left the bush. Now I need the wild as much as I need human contact. Can’t imagine going without it indefinitely, and there are times like these when it trumps every other need but food and water. So I’m counting the days…

I’m fortunate enough to be married to someone who understands this need. In fact, Judy’s been on me for months to break away. She usually sees it in me before I do. Not quite sure what she sees, but she’s learned over the years to recognize it. Maybe it’s the faraway look in my eyes; maybe it’s the sharpness of my words or the darkness of my thoughts. Hard to say. She just knows.

My dog, Matika, just groaned. She’s lying on the floor, relaxed but ready. If I grabbed my pack and started gathering up my gear, she’d be bouncing off the walls in a matter of minutes. She’s waiting for the command: “Let’s go!” I hope to bark it at her in a few weeks. Then together we’ll go deep into the woods and rediscover our wilder selves. But for now patience, patience.

Tags: Adirondacks, the wild