Woods Wanderer

Earlier this week, I went into the woods overnight just to get away from my work and chill out. I walked up a logging road winding into the Green Mountains, cut across an overgrown meadow, then bushwhacked along a crystal clear stream until I found a beautiful spot to camp.

Setting up my tent and making myself right at home didn’t take long, but the woods were wet from rain the day before, so it took a while to strip off the bark on the wood I gathered. Wood without its bark dries out fast and burns well. After gathering plenty of it, I ate lunch, did a little naturalizing, and wrote in my field journal before taking a long nap. Backwoods adventure? No, more like seriously goofing off.

That evening I placed some birch bark in the middle of the campfire ring I had created, built a small tipi of tiny sticks over it, then struck a match. Ten minutes later I had a good fire going. Another ten minutes after that I had water boiled up in my handy little one-quart pot. I kept the fire going as I drank hot tea with my dinner. I continued tending the fire long after its usefulness.

The sun disappeared behind a nearby ridge. Daylight faded away. The campfire slowly became the center of my universe. I fed sticks into it, carefully placing them to maximize the burn. My thoughts wandered. The water in the nearby stream rushed over rocks incessantly. The fire snapped and crackled, occasionally kicking out a blue flame. It mesmerized me as darkness closed in. I lost track of time.

Late in the evening I let the campfire slowly die out, becoming embers. Then I hit it hard with several pots of water from the brook before going to bed. In the morning I fired it up again, letting it die out quickly after breakfast. Then I dismantled the campfire, tossing the stones in the brook and burying a couple handfuls of cold ashes. No trace of it remained when I hiked away.

Pity the poor souls in the distant or perhaps not-too-distant future who will be unable to build a campfire anywhere. You can’t buy the kind of solace a campfire provides. It is a good reason to go in the woods, venturing off-trail, if you ask me.

Tags: backpacking, bushwhacking, campfire, Green Mountains, mountain stream

This time of year, when the trails are wet and so easily damaged, I like to walk a brook. The one that first comes to mind winds through a valley in the Green Mountains shadowed by Camel’s Hump. I’ve been walking it for decades. It’s like an old friend to me.

You could call this a hike, but the way I do it these days it’s really more of a walk. I take my time, traveling half the speed I did when I was half my current age. I want to bushwhack into my 70s and 80s, you see, so I’m setting the right pace to do that now. Slow but sure.

After leaving a nearby dirt road, I follow a rough track a quarter mile to the brook. Then I start bushwhacking. I have a compass tucked into my shirt pocket, but it’s not necessary. The brook guides me through the woods and every feeder stream is a way home that I’ve taken before. So my mind is free to wander, or to groove on the wildness all around me.

Evergreen woodfern and Christmas ferns are still pressed firmly to the ground. It’s early spring and the snow cover has just melted off. Polypody ferns rise from moss-covered boulders, though. That, the clubmoss, and hemlocks green up the otherwise bleached, brown landscape. A few icy patches still lurk in the hollows of rocks, but this is a springtime world not a winter one. The spongy, half-thawed earth underfoot is proof of that.

Because the stream is running lower than usual this time of year, I ford it several times to avoid large mudslides. My boots get wet and my feet get cold in the process, but I don’t care. That too is part of this springtime ritual.

A couple miles back, I bask in sunlight while stretched across a flat boulder next to a deep pool that harbors brook trout. Here I eat lunch. A moth flutters before my eyes. A chickadee sings in the distance. The leafless trees all around me reach toward the deep blue sky. Meltwater rushes past incessantly. I have daydreamed about this place for months. Now here I am. And the walk out that follows is a moving meditation.

Soon the world will green up and the warm season will unfold to everyone’s delight. But it’s enough, for me at least, to tramp through snow-free woods when there’s still a chill in the air and the first wildflowers haven’t risen yet. It’s a different kind of beauty and happiness – subtle and anticipatory. It’s a humble pleasure.

Tags: bushwhacking, early spring, Green Mountains, mountain brook

After a round of writing early in the morning, I grabbed my rucksack and headed for the mountains. To avoid hunters, I went high. To avoid other people, I hiked the Long Trail south out of the Winooski River Valley towards Camels Hump. I figured few people would be trying to climb up that mountain from this approach: six miles, a roughly 3,500 feet base-to-summit rise. I planned on going only part way.

I was half right. I encountered a bunch of other hikers during the 1.5-mile section of trail up to a lookout called Duxbury Window, but hardly anyone after that. A young woman thru-hiking the LT blew past me. No one else was on the ridge. The trail becomes steep in places beyond the lookout, and was muddy after a couple days of rain. But I was happy enough motoring along, breaking a sweat in the cool air. It felt good to be away from my desk on a beautiful, clear sky day — what could be the last nice day before the snow flies.

From an opening in the trees, I saw a bump on the ridge well short of the summit. I set that as my goal. Years ago I had done this same hike and had stopped for lunch on a rocky outcropping with a nearly 360-degree view. I surmised that it was on that bump. But without a map handy, I wasn’t sure. I was hiking from memory.

Just short of 3 miles, I detoured to the Bamforth Ridge Shelter, wondering if I’d stopped here before. Upon reaching it, I still didn’t know. It didn’t look familiar. How long ago did I last hike this ridge? Before I had my dog Matika as a hiking companion. She’s been gone a while now. That means I last hiked this trail 14 years ago, at least. Whoa!

My knees were starting to complain by the time I reached the bump on the ridge. It felt more like a false summit as I climbed it. To my surprise, it was completely wooded. I pulled out my cell phone to check the time. Well into the afternoon already, hmm…. I sat down long enough to eat lunch and drink as much water as I could. Then I turned back.

Wet and covered with leaves, the steep sections of the trail were somewhat treacherous. I took my time, carefully placing my feet during the descent. I was glad to have a hiking stick to keep my balance. I was feeling played out by the time I got back to the lookout, but it was a pleasant walk through late autumn foliage from there. I got back to the trailhead with two hours of daylight left, no problem. But next time I go out, I’ll plan better and carry a map. Memory can’t be trusted.

Tags: autumn, Green Mountains, hiking, Long Trail, memory, stamina

After a steep, one-mile hike, I arrive at Sterling Pond just as the sun is cresting Madonna Peak. I’ve come here early to fly fish the pond before the crowd arrives. Situated between two ski resorts and a well-beaten path out of Smuggler’s Notch, this is a popular place. But I haven’t been here in years so thought I’d check it out. I’ve done well fishing this pond for brook trout in the past.

Water laps to shore as a gentle breeze rocks the conifers surrounding the pond. Chickadees and veerys call out, otherwise it’s very quiet here. I cast a dry fly repeatedly upon the pond’s surface then switch to a wet one. No result either way. The trout aren’t rising. But with temps in the 60s, a blue sky overhead and no mosquitoes or black flies, I don’t really care.

I hike to the far end of the pond and try my luck again. Day hikers show up back where I was fishing before but I can barely hear them. I cast for a half an hour or so, then make an entry in my field journal while eating a mid-morning snack. Again, no trout rising.

While hiking the trail around the pond, I try my luck again at a couple other places. Still no action so I pack up my rod and hike towards Spruce Peak. Atop that mountain, I eat lunch while gazing across Smuggler’s Notch to Mount Mansfield. No one else is here. And the summer breeze, still blowing steadily, keeps the black flies at bay. I lounge near the edge of a cliff thinking about nothing, nothing at all. I’m happy just being in the moment.

Eventually I leave Spruce Peak then hike down the beaten path to the notch. Dozens of hikers pass me – most of them on their way up to the pond. I step aside, letting them pass. It’s early afternoon and I’m in no rush. I’ve already enjoyed a good day in the mountains, even though I caught no fish.

Tags: fly fishing, Green Mountains, hiking, summer

Late winter. I tramp the hard-packed trail leading into Honey Hollow wearing crampons until they clog up with snow. Then I take them off. Easier walking without them. With temps above freezing, it’s a pleasant hike in shirtsleeves and thermals. The sun peeks through the clouds as I pass the gorge.

Upon reaching a gate blocking the side trail, I affix snowshoes to my boots. From this point forward, the hike gets harder. I follow the snowshoe tracks of someone else who came this way a week or two ago – after the last big snowstorm. This takes some doing but it’s easier than breaking trail.

The older tracks go beyond the apple tree clearing. They turn around shortly after crossing a feeder stream tumbling down to Preston Brook. Then I’m on my own, cutting tracks in two feet of undisturbed snow. I work up a sweat in no time. I stop frequently to catch my breath. While doing so, I catch glimpses of open leads of water in the brook fifty yards to my left. That gets me thinking spring isn’t too far away.

It takes the better part of an hour to break half a mile of trail. Then I reach the tree along the brook where I pressed a fishing fly into bark last summer. That makes me smile. Not too far beyond that tree, I tamp down a spot to rollout my foam pad. Then I sit down for a while. It’s a lovely day in the snow-covered mountains. I eat a handful of nuts and an energy bar, and drink nearly a liter of water while listening to the deep forest quiet. The brook murmurs beneath the snowpack.

After lunch I retrace my steps, improving the trail I’ve cut. I had intended to do a loop, but backtracking is a lot easier than cutting tracks. I stop frequently just to look around, grooving on the wild beauty of the Green Mountains in winter. So glad I came out for the day.

Tags: forest solitude, Green Mountains, late winter, snowshoeing, wild beauty

In 1990, I published a slender, olive green paperback called Tracks across the Forest Floor. It was my first attempt to write a nonfiction narrative about one of my ventures into the woods. Tracks went out of print a long time ago, but I included it in a set of six hiking narratives called Backcountry Excursions, released in 2005. That book has been nearly out of print for several years now. Well, in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Tracks, I have reprinted Backcountry with a new cover and preface. And a few fixed typos to boot.

Three of the narratives in this collection appear in other collections of mine, namely Loon Wisdom and The Great Wild Silence. Tracks and the remaining two can be found nowhere else. Just as important as Tracks, I think, is the 25-page narrative about a trip into northern Maine that I took in ’96 with my buddy Charlie, following Thoreau to Mt. Katahdin by water and land. We used a two-man sea kayak instead of a bateau and ended up hiking a different path up the mountain, but it was great fun all the same. And it gave me a reason to recount one of Thoreau’s excursions into the Maine Woods.

The real reason for reprinting this book is simply to keep it in print. Backcountry Excursions is now available at Amazon.com as well as the Wood Thrush Books website. Most of my readers are already familiar with this book, but now it’s out there for everyone to see how I got started, and what kind of critter I really am.

Tags: Adirondacks, backpacking, Green Mountains, hiking narratives, Maine woods, nature, White Mountains, wilderness travel

At long last the snow is melting in the mountains, exposing bare ground. I drove to the base of a favorite valley, parked my car then hiked up the narrow dirt road still closed for the season. About a mile back, I left the road, bushwhacking down to the brook. It felt good to have soft earth underfoot, and to see the heavily silted stream shooting downhill, full of snowmelt.

I tramped through the forest with ease despite downed trees and a few remnant patches of snow, following the brook to places where I’d camped in the past. Then came the two mudslides. Usually I would cross the brook, thus avoiding the mudslides, but the brook had too much water in it. So instead I scrambled on all fours across one slide then the other, until I was deep in the valley. That’s when I stumbled upon a familiar place – a place I’d forgotten about, a place where I caught a sizable brook trout a long time ago.

I settled into an inviting niche along the edge of the pool, just below a huge slab of moss-covered rock. The sun shined brightly through the clear blue sky. The brook roared as it raced past. With temps in the 50s the gentle wind caressing me felt downright balmy. I drank some water, ate a granola bar, and jotted a few lines in my field journal while soaking in the beauty of the forest in early spring.

There are places, wild places, so familiar to me that they feel like home. Most of these places are located in Vermont’s Green Mountains. Some are in the Adirondacks. Upon reaching them, I suddenly get the feeling that everything is right with the world. And whatever was troubling me in the developed places doesn’t matter so much. Go figure.

While tramping out of the woods, I reveled in the great wild silence, happy enough just breathing in the clear mountain air. Once again I felt comfortable in my skin. A good hike is like that. A good hike is nothing more than getting back in touch with one’s animal self. That is enough.

Tags: bushwhack, Green Mountains, mountain stream, springtime, wildness

Even though I enjoy tramping around local woods, there comes a time when I need a day in the mountains. That day came yesterday, after I’d done all the work that I needed to do for the week.

My dog Matika was all excited when I pulled out my pack, of course. It had been a while since we had last escaped the developed lowlands – longer than I care to admit.

After leaving my car at the bottom of Honey Hollow, I strapped on my snowshoes. Only a few inches of powdery snow covered the road leading up into the hollow, but I figured the ‘shoes would come in handy once I left the road. Twenty minutes later, I bushwhacked down to the brook without breaking through the snow crust beneath the powder. Matika, right on my heels, didn’t sink in either.

The rumble of distant traffic faded until there was only the sound of the mountain brook gurgling beneath the ice. While following the brook, I spotted open leads of water here and there. The occasional gust of wind shook snow from the tree boughs. The conifers added a little green to this otherwise brown and white world. The mottled grey clouds overhead broke open every once in a while, exposing patches of blue sky.

I followed a set of wildcat tracks partially obscured by overnight snowfall. It seemed to know the best route through the woods. Once I’d gone far enough, I tossed a foam pad on the snow then sat against a tree, grooving on the pristine beauty of the wintry scene before me. Matika chewed on a stick once the snacks ran out. Always the writer, I jotted a few thoughts in a field journal. Once it was too cold to sit still, I got moving again.

Snowshoeing up into the hollow was tough going, but the way out seemed effortless. I cut my pace, stopping several times to enjoy the snow-covered forest. All the same, the car appeared before I was ready to quit the woods. So I resolved to get into the mountains again, as soon as possible. It’ll probably be spring or close to it by the time I do so.

Tags: Green Mountains, mountain brook, snowshoeing

Yesterday I awoke with a powerful urge to drop everything and head for the hills, but instead of doing that I set to work on my book biz. New acquisitions had to be listed and orders needed to be filled. Then I moped through the first half of the afternoon thinking it was too late to break away.

2:30 pm. With only a few hours of daylight left, I pulled on my hiking boots and hopped in the car. Then I drove as deep into the Green Mountains as I could get in an hour. Some things just can’t wait.

After parking the car, I hiked up a logging road for twenty minutes before bushwhacking over to Basin Brook. Felt good to be in the woods. Felt even better to be sitting next to the brook, listening to the endless murmur of water finding its way downhill.

My dog Matika chewed on a stick as I smoked a cigar. I pondered matters both great and small while sitting there. Eventually I felt the urge to get moving again. So I wandered through the forest with no particular destination in mind. Then I tagged the logging road and headed back to the car well before sunset.

Just what the doctor ordered. Though I’d be hard pressed to explain what it is exactly that I get from a wild place when I visit it, there’s no doubt in my mind that it fills a need deep within. I returned home feeling much better, and ready to resume work.

Tags: Green Mountains, mountain brook, the wild urge, woods wanderring

We had to wait before setting foot on the trail. The rain was nonstop for days. And even when it did finally stop, the trail was all wet rock and mud with a stream running down it. No matter. We went up the mountain anyway.

I did my best to coax my grandkids into ignoring the mud and water, making sure they had good footing with each step. But that was a lost cause. They hopped around, trying to keep their shoes clean and dry, falling down in the process. We all have to learn that the hard way, I suppose.

“Are we halfway yet?” the kids kept asking, even though they all had energy to spare. As for me, well, I was huffing and puffing ten minutes out the gate, and reduced to a steady creep by the time they found a comfortable pace. The eldest boy Hunter was out front with orders to halt the group whenever they lost sight of me. That happened frequently.

They thought it was pretty cool when the broadleaf trees became conifers, and when the trail became steep and rocky. Reaching a ski path, I told them they could either take the easy route up that path or continue following the white blazes straight ahead. The blazes marked a steeper, even rockier ascent through stunted spruce. They charged up that section of trail without hesitation.

By the time we reached the summit, we were in the clouds. No view for all our hard work. But they thought hiking into the clouds was pretty cool, too. We stayed on the summit long enough to drink water and eat our energy bars. Then we ducked into the nearby building to warm up. That’s when we started missing Grandma. She could have taken the gondola up to meet us.

I think it was Maddie who noticed how dark the woods were when we left the open ski slope. Our descent after that was arduous, thanks to slippery mud and rock. All the same, everyone was glad to have done the hike when we finished. At 3,800 feet, Jay Peak was the biggest mountain any of them had ever climbed.

On the way down, there was some talk about climbing other big mountains in Vermont. But I think next year we’ll hike something with Grandma instead. It was a great hike, but she was definitely missed.

Tags: Green Mountains, hiking with kids, Jay Peak, wet trail