Woods Wanderer

It’s always a surprise to step into the woods on a sunny day only to find the trail all wet and muddy.  Oh yeah, that’s right, the rain came down in buckets yesterday afternoon.  Besides, this month has been much wetter than usual.  And unlike pavement, fields and other open areas, the woods do not dry out quickly.  Sometimes it takes several days, a week or more.

The vegetation loves all this wetness, of course.  Moss, trees, ferns, wildflowers, bushes – everything around me was lush and happy as I hiked up Belvidere Mountain.  And mushrooms sprang up everywhere.  The wild forest loves to be wet.  Water brings it to life.  A red eft crawled underfoot as if to remind me that mud is good.  My dog, Matika, concurred.  A half hour into the hike, she was black from the chest down, and all smiles.

At first I dodged the muddiest places in the trail, hopped over the rivulets running every which way, and stepped onto flat rocks when I could, trying to stay clean.  Then I relaxed.  I let my boots and pants get wet and dirty.  I stopped cursing my fogged-up eyeglasses, and drank extra water to compensate for the sweat that wasn’t evaporating.  I watched the steam rolling off my shirt whenever I took a break, and accepted it as a normal condition.

Near the top of the mountain, a wood thrush called out repeatedly.  That’s always fortuitous.  Wet or dry, the wild woods are the place to be.  I placed my walking stick carefully as I negotiated slick roots and rocks.  Matika leaped ahead of me, surprisingly surefooted.  I reached the summit faster than expected, then marveled at the blue sky contradicting the damp forest.  Matika just smiled.  Yeah, any day in the woods is a good day as far as she’s concerned, no matter what the trail is like.

The descent was a little stressful.  I worried about slipping and falling, but managed to get down without incident.  I cleaned up swamp dog the best I could when we reached the brook, getting myself a little wetter in the process.  But that didn’t matter.  I knew I’d be clean and dry for the next two days, while working indoors.  “Enjoy the wetness while you can,” I mumbled to myself.  Yeah, being wet and wild is a good thing.

Tags: Green Mountains, hiking, the elements, the wild

Sometimes I step into the woods to commune with nature and renew my spirit.  Other times I do it for the exercise.  I don’t like to run but I do like to hike.  So when it’s time to give my flabby, fifty-something body a workout, I grab my pack and head for the nearest mountain.

Make no mistake about it.  Hiking up a fair-sized mountain will give you just as much of a workout as a good run.  It takes longer, that’s all.

I don’t know how many times I’ve hiked up Jay Peak.  I climb it at least once a year just to see what kind of shape I’m in. The hike is 1.7 miles one way; a roughly 1600-foot rise from trailhead to summit.  I can usually get up it in an hour and twenty minutes.  My fastest time is an hour and ten.  It took an hour and a half this time around.  Nothing says “You’re out of shape” to me like those simple numbers.

Most people hike mountains for the exercise, the view, and the sense of accomplishment that bagging a peak brings.  Don’t get me wrong.  I like the view as much as the next guy.  And yes, of course, standing on a summit makes my day.  But as I get older, I do it more for the exercise than anything else.  I charge up mountains as if desperately escaping the Grim Reaper.  I figure that I’ll live to be a hundred if I climb enough mountains, all medical surprises notwithstanding.  Okay, maybe 90 or 85.

It’s more a matter of quality of life than quantity, really.  I don’t want to spend my old age bedridden or plugged to a machine if I can avoid it.  And I know I won’t be able to afford all those marvelous pills out there.  At any rate, I figure that hiking now is cheaper than taking pills later on.  Besides, it’s much more fun.

We all make choices.  Too many people choose by default – not looking ahead, not considering the consequences, or simply not dealing with it.  I have an inner tube of fat around my mid-section proving that I too have made many choices by default, opting for a cookie instead of a carrot, an hour in front of the tv or computer instead of an hour sweating.  We all make bad choices at one point or another.  But there comes a moment when physical reality smacks you up the side of the head.  Then you make a choice, consciously or otherwise, to either change your ways or stay the course.

My moment of realization came halfway up Jay a couple days ago, when I was week-legged, sweating profusely, and gasping for air.  Time to lose the inner tube, I told myself.  So there will probably be more mountains in my future.  Either that or I’ll become Jabba the Hut.

Tags: choices, Green Mountains, hiking, physical exercise

Yesterday my dog, Matika, and I headed for the mountains, taking full advantage of springtime sunshine.  A hard frost covered everything at dawn, but temps had reached into the fifties by the time we reached the trailhead.  I shouldered my rucksack and charged up the trail, ready for a good workout.  Matika kept a few yards ahead of me most of the time, occasionally bolting after an unsuspecting chipmunk.  Yeah, Matika is fixated on chipmunks.  And nothing I say can change her mind.

It felt great being back in the mountains again.  Over breakfast, I’d read an article about that big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico so my stomach was in knots.  I know better than to let morning news get to me that way, but I just couldn’t help myself.  There are so many things wrong about that disaster and how it’s playing out that I go nuts thinking about it.  Why did we let this happen?  Why can’t we come up with a better solution to our energy woes than drilling a mile deep into the ocean?  Anyway, it was good being back in the mountains, breaking a sweat and breathing fresh air, with no one else around.  I reveled in it.

A mile and a half into the hike, I reached a point on the trail that felt to me like the edge of spring.  By then I’d climbed to about fifteen hundred feet so the canopy overhead had thinned considerably.  A few patches of snow, left over from a recent storm, underscored the transition.  I pulled out my camera to snap a picture of the scene.  While I was doing that, a moose strolled leisurely across the trail.  It even stopped a moment to check out my dog and me before stepping back into the brush.  Matika was looking the other way, fixated on chipmunks.  I called for her to look around.  By the time she did, the moose was gone.

My dog isn’t stupid, nor is she a stranger to the forest.  It’s just that she doesn’t always pay attention to her surroundings.  She often gets fixated on chipmunks and squirrels, thereby missing larger quarry.  In that regard, she reminds me of some people I know.  “Drill! Drill! Drill!” they say, and there’s no getting them to seriously consider any other alternatives, let alone the consequences.

Matika missed the moose but I didn’t.  After years of not seeing one, it felt good to stand eyeball-to-eyeball with ol’ Bullwinkle again.  And I’m glad I got a picture of it.  Now I have proof.  To this day, there are still people who think that moose are rare in the Vermont woods.  But they’re all over the place.   Look down the next time you’re hiking in the Green Mountains and chances are good that you’ll see their tracks pressed deeply into the trail.  All you have to know is what a moose track looks like.  Then pay attention.

Tags: awareness, Green Mountains, hiking with dogs, moose, renewable energy

Last night I went to the DoubleTree Hotel in South Burlington to join 300 other people celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Long Trail.  The evening was full of laughs, tales of incredible dedication, and deep reverence for the mountains that so many of us hold dear.  300 people in a single room – it was enough of a crowd to scratch the itch of my agoraphobia.  But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

On March 11, 1910 a fellow named James P. Taylor gathered together two dozen Vermonters at a hotel in downtown Burlington to charter the Green Mountain Club.  They created the club in order to build a long-distance trail that would “make the mountains play a larger part in the life of the people.”  A couple months later, Clarence Cowles and Craig O. Burt cut a three-mile section of trail from Mt. Mansfield to Nebraska Notch, and the Long Trail was born.  It took twenty years and hundreds of volunteers, but eventually the Long Trail spanned the entire length of Vermont, from Massachusetts to the Canadian border.  That was no mean feat.

I was fortunate enough to hike the Long Trail end-to-end back in 1995.  To this day that experience remains one of the highlights of my life.  As anyone who has thru-hiked will tell you, several weeks on the trail does something to you that all the day-to-day aggravations of modern living can’t touch.  It’s a life-changing experience to say the least.  I wrote at length about it in a book that I first published back in ’99, and I still stand by those words.

“Mountain saints” is what Taylor called those who built the Long Trail and I feel much the same way about them.  Even if there were no LT, I would still wander through the Green Mountains, making them my own.  But it’s so much easier to do that because of those who cut the trail, those who have maintained it, and those who have worked so tirelessly to preserve it.  Thank you mountain saints!

The Green Mountain Club, now almost 10,000 strong, is still hard at work building shelters, improving trail, and securing the corridor through which the trail passes.  I’m no joiner – far from it – but the GMC is one of the few organizations to which I proudly belong.  Maybe someday I’ll do something that will help perpetuate the LT.  In the meantime, I will hike that trail keeping in mind all those who have made it possible.

Tags: Green Mountains, hiking, Long Trail, Vermont

Several inches of hard-packed snow lay beneath an inch of fluffy stuff, making conditions good for hiking, so I left my snowshoes behind when I went to Honey Hollow last week.  With a rucksack loaded full of essentials and my dog, Matika, at my side, I started up the narrow lane.  The lane was closed for winter but someone had groomed it for skiers or snowmobiles.  No matter.  I had it all to myself that chilly, overcast day.

Half a mile up the wintry lane, I left it for a trail leading down towards Preston Brook.  Matika and I followed the trail until it emptied into a small yard harboring an ancient wild apple tree.  There we picked up a set of deer tracks running parallel to the brook.  A light snow fell as man and dog disappeared into the woods.

I traced those deer tracks for a half hour or so, as my canine companion cavorted all over the place.  Happy dog, sniffing and running.  Man plodding along.  The brook murmured beneath the ice, peeking out occasionally from broken seams.  Patches of hemlock green adorned the otherwise naked forest.  The snow blanketing the ground muffled all sound.  I passed a fresh, rectangular hole drilled into a nearby dead tree, but no woodpecker came into sight.  No birds at all, in fact.  Intense quiet.

I unrolled my foam pad atop a snow-covered boulder next to the brook, and sat down on it.  Short lunch break at midday.  Matika ate a cup of kibble from a hole I dug in the snow then lined with plastic.  I nibbled an energy bar left over from a backpacking trip last summer, dreaming of warmer days.  Although shrouded by ice and snow, I recognized a deep pool in the brook about twenty yards downstream and imagined casting my line in there again as I have many times in the past.  Hmm…  Opening day of trout season still two months away…

Sometimes I come out here to ponder the mysteries of the universe.  Other times I come out just to sit quietly by the brook, letting its gentle murmur wash away all my thoughts.  The chill of my own sweat got to me, though, before either thought or no-thought could occur.  I packed up my rucksack and headed farther upstream.  The surrounding mountains were calling my name.

At some point early in the afternoon, I gave up my aimless wandering and returned to the lane.  Then it was an easy walk out, crisscrossing the tracks of animals just as restless as me.  The snow flurries, which had stopped at midday, started up again.  I reached my car much faster than expected.  And I ran the car heater full blast during the long drive home.

It was good to get out and stretch my legs, but I’m really looking forward to spring.  Hungrier for it now than I’ve been in years.  Not sure why.

Tags: bushwhacking, Green Mountains, hiking alone, mountain stream, nature in winter

After parking my car where Preston Brook spills into the Winooski River Valley, I hike the narrow dirt road up a steep grade into Honey Hollow.  There’s a dusting of snow on the ground and flurries in the air, but I’m dead set upon finding springtime here on this early April day.  I follow a deer trail down to the brook once I’m above the gorge.  The trail empties into a small clearing a short while later, where a hungry deer have foraged beneath a lone apple tree.  From there it’s an easy bushwhack along the stream, back to the base of Camel’s Hump – my favorite Green Mountain.  I set a steady pace to keep from wearing out too quickly.

I’m looking for signs of eternal renewal but my dog, Matika, doesn’t care.  Any day in the woods is a good one to her.  She leaps over a feeder stream, does a 180, then leaps over it again for the sheer joy of leaping.  She scratches here and there, sniffs, and runs about wildly.  She couldn’t be happier.  As for me, well, I’m halfway between being in my body and in my head – between sensual awareness and philosophical abstraction.  I hope to tip the balance towards the sensual before day’s end.

Preston Brook roars as spring runoff cascades through the rocks.  It is a bank-full tumult of whitewater racing out of the mountains, teasing me with mere glimpses of its clear, green pools.  This stream won’t be fishable for another month, but already my thoughts have turned towards the speckled trout lurking in dark corners just beneath the surface.  Icicles dangle from the moss-covered trees that have fallen across the torrent.  I look for a stonefly shuck amid the rocks along the stream’s edge but don’t find one there.  Soon, very soon.

Beneath my feet, the ground is soft, spongy, and covered with forest detritus.  In wetter places, I sink up to my ankles in mud.  While stepping over blowdown, I notice tiny, club-shaped reproductive organs arising from a patch of moss – a sure sign that the growing season has commenced.  The Christmas ferns, polypody, and evergreen woodferns pressed to the ground by winter are starting to rebound.  Deep green clubmoss pokes through patches of snow, making me think of a different era when the growing season was very short, indeed. And for a split second I feel Neolithic – fresh from the Ice Age.

Coltsfoot appears suddenly before me on a mudslide.  I am shocked by its tight curl of yellow petals on the verge of opening.  Already?  A bit later I spot a robin on the branch of a young maple tree – something common in the lowlands this time of year but rare here in the mountains.  Looking around, I notice the hemlocks adding welcome color to an otherwise brown and gray forest.  I thank them for it.  My eyes hunger for green.

Miles deep in the hollow, I take a seat next to the brook and rest.  Matika has a cup of kibbles for lunch while I eat a handful of nuts, a granola bar and a few pretzels.  Before long I’m chilled by my own sweat, so I pack up then tag the narrow dirt road for a long walk out.  I daydream along the muddy lane, recollecting other walks here in years past – many, many walks.  Growing older isn’t so bad.  My vault of pleasant memories overflows.

Through a break in the trees, I see Bone Mountain in the distance looking very cold and gray.  No matter.  A gust of warm wind blowing up from the Winooski River Valley reminds me what time of year it is.  I pass a dozen green shoots of wild lilies breaking through the earth.  Then I smile.  Yeah, it’s that time of year and I can feel a vital part of me thawing.  And before I get back to my car, I’m already planning my next outing.  This time of year, I can’t get enough of it.

Tags: awareness, Green Mountains, hiking, signs of spring

Yesterday I went back into the Green Mountains to regain some semblance of sanity. A series of events, largely out of my control, kept me away from them for over a month. That’s way too long. A great weight lifted from my shoulders the moment I stepped out of my car and into the woods. I looked around long enough to notice daisies, buttercups and tall meadow rue in bloom nearby, then shouldered my rucksack and charged up the logging road. My dog, Matika, was already twenty yards ahead of me – no doubt as glad as I was to get back to the wild.

A mile up the logging road, I tagged the Basin Brook. I followed it into the green infinity without as much as a deer trail underfoot. When the brook forked, I took the tributary leading back to a series of beaver ponds that I had visited a few years ago. There I would put the collapsed fly rod in my rucksack to good use. But first I had to reach those ponds. That’s easier said than done, as any seasoned bushwhacker will tell you.

The Vermont woods are lush this time of year. The extra rain they’ve seen recently has made a lot of plants and animals happy. Mosquitoes greeted me while I flailed through thick entanglements of hobblebush, but I was happy enough tramping across the forest floor, listening to the stream’s song and breathing in the dank smell of a wet forest. For a few hours, I was off the grid. And that’s a feeling you can’t buy at your nearest superstore.

Matika was a knot of exuberance, running back and forth through the woods just to be running. More than once she leaped over blowdown only to land chest-deep in a mud hole. She didn’t care. When I crossed the brook, she bounded past, splashing me in the process. I think she did that on purpose.

It took a couple hours but eventually I found that old beaver pond I’d fished a few years back. The newer ones below it had broken and drained, but the old one still held firm even though there was no indication that any beaver still lived there. From the beaver dam, I waved my fly rod a few times and landed a fair-sized brook trout. I didn’t let Matika wade into the pond so she sat on the dam looking rather bored while I fished. She pulled sticks from the dam and chewed on them until she caused the dam to leak. That and the gray clouds overhead cut my fishing short. No matter. I had reached the pond and, quite frankly, that was all I really wanted to do. The pond was just a destination – something to aim for while wandering around the woods for a day. The way I see things, it’s all about the journey. The destination doesn’t really matter.

I bushwhack through life. Show me a trail and I’ll follow it for a while but not forever. I’m not a big rules kind of guy. Some people live their lives in a box; others think outside of the box; I can’t even find the box and don’t know what I’d do with it if I could. So I go into the woods on a regular basis, finding there the kind of meaning and purpose that most people find in credos, scientific facts or sacred texts. I walk streams, hike trails and generally wander about the woods, looking for insights into the real. I’m rarely disappointed.

The hike out was easy – downhill for the most part. When I got back to the car, I realized that I hadn’t seen another human being all day. Just what the doctor ordered. Matika climbed into the back seat and slept all the way home. I basked in the glow that always follows a day spent outdoors. Returning home, I hooked myself back into the grid. But I’ll be out there again soon. I hope to return to the woods before my mud-caked boots have a chance to completely dry out.

Tags: bushwhacking, fly fishing, Green Mountains, hiking with dogs, the wild, Vermont