Woods Wanderer

It wasn’t easy getting up for a hike as rain gathered on the windshield of my car, but I knew I’d see things differently once I was in the thick of things.  My dog, Matika, didn’t care.  She’s up for a hike anytime, anywhere, in any weather.  So I parked my car, grabbed my rain hat, and stepped into the woods.

At first I thought I’d just follow the overgrown skidder trail a short distance beyond the beaver pond, then turn around.  But my legs wanted more.  Despite the bugs, drizzle and tall, wet grass, I was enjoying the walk.  So I kept going until I reached a small clearing illuminated by gray light.  There the skidder trail fragmented into several sketchy paths shooting different directions.  And there, true to my natural inclinations, I chose the path less traveled and ventured deeper.

I recognized the path.  I had walked it a year earlier until it had completely disappeared into the brush.  Shortly after that, I had been turned around for an hour or so.  With that in mind, I checked the compass dangling around my neck.  Yeah, this time I was ready for the wily ways of French Hill.

I followed the fading path until it crested a ridge.  Then it vanished.  I bushwhacked down the far side of the ridge until I came to a long, narrow wetland.  I was tempted to cross it and almost did out of sheer impulse.  My sense of direction told me to turn right.  My compass told me to turn left.  “That can’t be right,” I mumbled.  My dog waited patiently for me to make a decision.  I followed my compass.

Anyone who has ever been in this situation knows the rest of the story.  The compass was right, of course.  I soon tagged a game trail that veered back towards the beaver pond.  When I passed through a familiar gap in an old stone wall, I knew where I was again.  And I was back to my car fifteen minutes later.  Of course.

A compass isn’t infallible, and a certain amount of skill is necessary to use it properly.  Yet it has served me well on countless occasions when my “sense of direction” would have led me astray.  There’s a lesson to be learned here, no doubt, regarding subjective and objective thinking.  But I’ve said enough already.  I’ll leave it to others to draw whatever conclusions they so desire.

Tags: bushwhacking, land navigation, reason

After hiking hard for several hours, I leave the groomed trail and bushwhack along the brook until I’m way back in the mountains.  Then I drop my rucksack on a knob of high ground next to the brook and start making camp.  It’s an unseasonably hot day in May.  The leaves of birches and maples at this elevation are just opening up, so I’ve taken cover beneath a copse of conifers.  The terrain around me is rough but I’ve found a relatively flat spot to pitch my tarp.  After doing that, I fashion a small campfire circle then sit down to rest.

The black flies are out and looking for blood.  My dog, Matika, and I retreat beneath the tarp where the mosquito bar keeps the flies at bay.  By early evening, the temperature has fallen dramatically and the black flies are gone.  I make a seat out of my foam pad, leaning it against a big rock so that I can sit for a while, grooving on the wild.

At first I am busy cooking dinner, but when daylight fades to twilight I just sit, throwing thumb-sized sticks on the campfire and jotting down my thoughts in a journal.  Tightly wound nerves slowly unravel.  The incessant rush of water helps.  Soon I’m looking around, admiring the woody chaos all around me and wondering why I’m so lucky to be alone out here.  Why aren’t these woods full of other people doing the same?

Darkness slowly consumes the forest.  My modest woodpile has dwindled so I call it a day.  Matika is already lying in front of the tarp, ready for bed.  As I settle in for the night, the stars come out.  They twinkle through the canopy.

In the morning, just before sunrise, a gentle breeze sweeps down the mountain.  The forest smells like clean rot.  I go down to the brook to splash some cold water into my face and fill my pot.   It’s time for breakfast.  The small tepee of twigs bursts into flames in no time.  Soon I’m sitting in the woods again, journal in my lap, coffee in hand.  A wood thrush sings in the distance, as if to remind me that this is where I belong.    A wood thrush is always singing, it seems, when I am happiest.

Eventually I grow restless.  I want to start hiking again, so I break camp and pack up.  By the time I have bushwhacked back to the trail, I’m sweating heavily.  Yeah, it’s going to be another warm one.  But I don’t care.  It’s a glorious, summer-like day and I am footloose in the forest.  It doesn’t get any better than this.

Tags: backpacking, bushwhacking, camping, contemplation

Record breaking warmth descended upon New England last weekend, giving everyone cause to celebrate.  It came just in time for Easter.  No doubt more than one churchgoer said a little prayer of thanks for it.  More hedonistic folk headed for the beach to bask half naked in the sun.  At the very beginning of the heat wave, I celebrated the only way I know how.  I grabbed my rucksack and headed for the hills immediately following a round of writing.

By the time I had pulled my car into a small turnout next to Preston Brook, it was noon.  The air temperature had soared into the 60s by then, making short work of a remnant patch of snow nearby.  I wasn’t sorry to see it go.

I hiked up the dirt road following the brook until I heard the roar of water from the gorge.  I stepped into the woods and went over for a quick look.  Sure enough, the brook was completely free of ice and cascading down through the rocks with all the force that early spring runoff could muster.  A quiet little stream in mid-summer, Preston Brook was a raging torrent that afternoon.  And I reveled in it.

I broke a sweat as I bushwhacked farther up the hollow, following the stream back to a favorite camping spot and beyond.  Matika cavorted about just as happy as any dog can be, lost in the many sights, sounds and smells of the wild.  The sun blazed through naked trees, illuminating club moss, polypody and evergreen woodferns springing back to life from a forest floor covered with bleached leaves and other detritus.  Rivulets of water ran everywhere.  My boots sank several inches into the spongy earth but I didn’t mind it one bit.

After hiking a while, I came upon a fresh rectangular cut in a dead tree – the handiwork of a pileated woodpecker.  Matika sniffed the pile of wood chips at the base of the tree as I looked around for a shady spot to break for lunch.  I found one beneath an old hemlock.  There I listened to the brook while scribbling in my journal and munching away.  A pair of deer stumbled upon us and Matika immediately gave chase.  But she turned right around the moment I called for her to return.  Good dog!

The brook sang and my heart sang with it – a wordless “Hallelujah!” at the dawn of a brand new growing season.  During the course of the hike I found coltsfoot in bloom along the dirt road.  Its small, yellow, daisy-like flower was a sure sign that I wasn’t dreaming.  I reached down to touch it and was amazed, as always, by the power of regeneration that is so common in this world yet no less miraculous.  And the squirrel that Matika and I passed on the way out seemed as happy as we were just to be alive.  Yet another winter has come and gone.  And all three of us have survived it.

Tags: bushwhacking, hiking with dogs, mountain stream, renewal, signs of spring, waterfalls

With temps in the 30s and a 90% chance of rain, I wasn’t real excited about going for a hike today.  But it was either that or mope around the house all afternoon.  So I changed into wools and thermals, and went out the door.

The moment I stepped into the woods, I knew I’d made the right decision.  With the ground giving way underfoot and nothing but trees all around, I immediately felt my nerves uncoil.  Five or ten minutes later, as I was leaving the logging road and starting to bushwhack, I sensed an old, familiar self returning.  It’s like that sometimes.  After a long winter, I don’t even know who I am any more.  It takes a cool, wet forest to remind me.

I walked past patches of snow still on the ground – reminders that winter just ended, and that one last snowstorm is still quite possible.  Here in New England, spring is the least predictable of all the seasons.  And that’s why I was still dressed for the colder weather.

My dog, Matika, frolicked through the forest, hot on the tracks of wild animals, occasionally flushing a ruffed grouse.  I can only imagine what she was thinking as she sniffed the fresh piles of deer pellets.  Maybe she too was feeling a wilder self return.

Angry about the poor health of loved ones, the fallout of a bad economy and never having enough money, I hiked furiously at first.  I swept around a frozen beaver pond, hellbent upon moving forward like I had somewhere important to go.  Then I stopped in a nearly pure stand of white birches as if stopping the madness.  I looked around and saw only mist and stillness.  I listened and heard only forest silence, until a pileated woodpecker let out its manic cry in the distance.  And that’s when it started to drizzle.  But I didn’t care.

Sweating in so many layers, I shed my sweater and rolled up my sleeves.  Then I meandered aimlessly through the forest, sometimes following a trail, sometimes not, as the mist thickened around me.  Matika flashed a great big smile at me and I returned it – both of us in dog heaven.

Back on the logging road, I left deep boot prints next to moose tracks while walking out.  I didn’t even try to dodge the pools of meltwater.  I sloshed through them like an eight year old trusting his rubber boots.  Then I crossed a brook with a short, easy hop.  The open brook’s babble and bubble was music to my ears.

Returning home, I marveled at how dismal the day looked from inside the house, and how chilled I felt all of a sudden.  So it’s a good thing that I went out today.  Otherwise, I might still think that it’s still winter.

Tags: bushwhacking, hiking with dogs, moods, signs of spring

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

I went for a long walk around noon yesterday, after a round of writing.  No surprise there.  I do it once a week, at least.  I drove out to Green’s Corners and walked my favorite section of the Rail Trail – one that passes through the woods and beyond a wetland before reaching a cluster of houses.  Matika was excited about getting out.  I’ve been working a lot lately so she’s hasn’t had much woods-romping time.  A few yards down the trail, I told myself that I really should get out more.  Yeah, right.

The sky was mostly blue but clouds were moving in from the southwest.  A few patches of green enlivened an otherwise brown landscape.  The air temp was around 40 degrees, neither warm nor cold.  A couple chickadees flitted about nearby trees.  That’s all.  Other birds were conspicuously absent.  Not much to look at, so a hundred yards past the wetland I stepped into the woods.  The “no trespassing” signs didn’t stop me.

I wasn’t fully aware of it at the time, but I stepped into the woods looking for the wild.  I stepped off the trail and into the woods because I felt an urge deep within to connect with wild nature, and not just pass through it like an ipod-wearing jogger.  I kicked up a few dry leaves as I walked, releasing their intoxicating fragrance.  And that was it: I was off and running.  By the time I reached a deer trail following a low ridge through the woods, Matika knew that we were on an impromptu adventure.  She smiled from ear to ear.

I didn’t wander about those woods very long.  I don’t like tramping across other people’s property, especially when they make it clear that I’m unwelcome.  I bushwhacked a half-mile loop that ended at a very small pond.  I tossed a few rocks into the pond, breaking the thin layer of ice covering it.  Then I tagged the Rail Trail and hiked out.

I caught a whiff of swamp gas as I walked past the wetland.  A caterpillar less than an inch long struggled across the path.  Clouds rolled overhead as if to remind me that this year’s first winter storm is overdue.  Matika sniffed the grass.  I broke a sweat as I picked up my pace, already thinking about the many things on my to-do list at home.  Then I resolved to take a much longer excursion in the woods soon, very soon.

Yesterday I went looking for the wild.  It’s as real as the air we breathe and the ground we trod, yet the most abstract of all philosophical concepts.  The wild is both everywhere and nowhere, ubiquitous yet ethereal.   Can’t say I found it, but it certainly found me.

Tags: awareness, bushwhacking, the wild, walking

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

Even though I had the house all closed up yesterday morning, I could hear a cardinal singing loud and clear from its treetop perch.  I didn’t dare look out the window because I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the blue sky.  I was hellbent upon getting various literary tasks done before noon, but it seemed rather foolish to write about the natural world while it was springing back to life just beyond my walls.  What would Thoreau do?  Eventually, I stuffed a compass in my pocket, slipped on my hike boots, and headed for the hills.  No doubt my dog, Matika, wondered why it had taken me so long to do so.

After watching a big old turkey crossing the road, I stepped into the woods.  I needed to hear the high-pitched symphony of spring peepers and had in mind a beaver pond where I was sure to find them.  Just before leaving the last semblance of a trail, I spotted coltsfoot in full bloom – not all that unusual in mid-April.  But the spring beauty that I found a few minutes later took me completely by surprise.  A week early, at least.  I dropped down to my knees and snorted the flower as a drug fiend snorts cocaine.  The result was just as narcotic.

I flushed two deer from a streambed while bushwhacking through some brambles.  Matika immediately chased after them but turned around when I called her back.  Good dog (sort of).  We hopped over the stream and continued deeper into the woods, skirting the beaver pond.  Its shimmering waters were clearly visible through the naked trees, but I wanted to reach a favorite spot on the pond’s opposite shore.  That would take some doing.

My passage through the forest wasn’t very direct.  I traveled from one patch of green to another, looking for more signs of the season.  I found a few mottled trout lily leaves springing forth, then stumbled into some fresh leeks.  I chewed a leek just for the sharp sting of it to my palette.  Matika sniffed the tracks of animals that had passed this way recently.  We reached the far side of the pond sooner than expected.

A Canada goose honked as we approached the pond’s marshy shoreline.  There I sat on a fallen tree, with Matika resting by my side, long enough for the peepers to resume their trilling.  They had fallen silent during our approach but started up again once we were quiet and still.  The goose floated closer, honking continuously as if to evict us.  She eventually got her way.  Matika and I moved away after the peeper chorus had sufficiently scrambled my brains.

A few wood frogs croaked from an ephemeral pool that we passed on the way out.  They stopped as soon as I went over to inspect their haunt.  I searched for more wildflowers in bloom but found none.  No matter.  An unblinking sun burned high in the sky and all I could think was this: How lucky I am to be alive on such a beautiful day.  I drove home slowly, very slowly, irritating the other drivers on the road who had places to go and things to do.  Too bad I couldn’t have walked home.  I really shouldn’t have been behind the steering wheel of a car in my condition.

Tags: bushwhacking, Canada geese, hiking with dogs, spring peepers, springtime, wildflowers

Snow lingers on the ground despite the weather forecaster’s promise of a return to autumn.  I look at the calendar on the wall.  It’s not even November yet.  This is an unusual turn of climatological events even by Vermont standards.  A dusting of the white stuff before Halloween, sure, but lingering snow this time of year?  C’mon now.

The night before last, I drove home through the darkness just after the cold rain switched to wet snow.  It was a white-knuckle drive that made me think about things to come.  But I went to bed confident that the snow would be gone by noon the next day.  And now, into the second day, I’m trying to make sense of it.  I’m trying to make sense of Mother Nature’s capricious ways.  It isn’t easy.

The law of averages provides some consolation.  Given enough time, snow will fall in September one year, and flowers will bloom in December another year.  It all evens out, right?  Of course it does, unless Mother Nature is up to something we don’t know about.  Yeah, trust the law of averages.  It’ll pass.

On October 4, 1987, I was taken by surprise.  I hiked into the mountains that day with enough gear to spend the night and every intention to do so.  There was something in the forecast about possible rain and a big drop in temperature but I shrugged it off.  Way too early in the season for anything serious.  I was trout fishing in my shirtsleeves at noon, wearing my rain jacket by mid-afternoon, and dealing with freezing rain at dusk.  I set up my tarp against a fallen tree then started a fire to stay warm.  That sorta worked.  When the freezing rain switched to sleet, I put on the dry clothes I’d brought with me and slipped beneath the tarp.  I duct-taped my ground cloth to an emergency blanket, creating a waterproof pouch around my sleeping bag.  Then I climbed into it.  I was nice and warm even as the thermometer I’d brought with me dipped below thirty.  The sleet turned to snow.

Just before daybreak, I awoke to snow – several inches of it covering my camp – and it was still coming down.  I used a stick to beat the ice loose from my rain jacket, then I put it on. The trees swayed precariously in a strong wind blowing from the west.  I broke camp in a hurry, foregoing breakfast.  Then I bushwhacked out of the mountains, three miles downhill, following a stream.  A mature birch cracked loudly in a gust of wind and I jumped out of the way just as it fell where I had been standing.  I kept an eye on the trees all around me as I slogged through the slippery wet snow, falling down repeatedly.  It was a long hike out.

I’ve never been so happy to leave the woods as I was that day, but my tribulation wasn’t over when I reached the road.  It was another two-mile march along the highway, face to the fierce wind, before I reached the nearest town.  There I called Judy and drank hot coffee while waiting for her in the delicious warmth of a convenience store.  I still had icicles in my beard when she picked me up.

Whatever happens today, I’ll be sure to stay warm.  I probably won’t go outdoors for anything more than a little errand running.  It’s way too early in the season for a winter hike.  But I’ll be thinking of that time when Mother Nature really zinged me.  By comparison, the inch or two of snow covering the ground right now is no big deal at all.

Tags: bushwhacking, survival, weather, wild nature

Every once in a while, I get this urge to wander aimlessly through the woods. Don’t get me wrong.  I like gliding along a well-worn trail as much as the next guy.  But sometimes I have to leave the trail and walk that ragged edge between knowing exactly where I am and being lost.  I find it quite instructive.

A second-class dirt road took me to a height of land where I could access the main spine of the Cold Hollow Mountains.  After parking my car in a logging yard, I followed a skidder trail halfway up the nearest mountain.  Then I followed an ATV trail to the summit.  On the south side of that summit, the ATV looped back towards the road and I had a choice to make: either follow the ATV trail where I didn’t want to go, or set forth into the trackless forest.  The next summit was about two miles south.  I checked my compass then stepped off the trail.

Hiking a trail is sweaty work; bushwhacking is harder.  I tramped through the woods, following a compass bearing due south, hoping to find a game trail along the way.  No such luck.  I followed a set of fresh moose tracks for a while but lost them in a wetland that suddenly cropped up.  It sprawled across the saddle between the summit I’d just hiked over and the one I was headed towards.  Wetlands aren’t easy to navigate, not even relatively small ones like this one.  I read the vegetation and muddled through it the best I could.  Then I started climbing the next mountain.  About ten minutes into the climb, I tagged a game trail following the remnants of a woods road that was at least half a century old.  It crept laterally up the side of the mountain, so I changed my compass bearing.  Yeah, land navigation is tricky that way.

I stopped for lunch halfway up the mountain, resting on a rocky outcropping that sported a fair view of Jay Peak and other mountains to the northeast.  My dog, Matika, helped me drink the better part of my two-liter water supply.  That and the dark clouds blowing in from the northwest forced my hand.  So after catching my breath, I headed back the way I’d come.

Every morning, the newspaper reminds me that a major financial crisis is still underway. What was a national problem is now a global one, and no one’s quite sure what to do about it.  Every pundit keeps to his or her philosophical traces, of course.  The liberals blame the current mess on evil corporations, and the conservatives blame the liberals for gumming up the free market system with their meddling.  Meanwhile, the average guy on the street wants to pin it all on a handful of greedy bastards.  Truth is, the global economy is a big, complex system and no one is really in control.  We want our fearless leaders to navigate us through this mess, but confidence sags when they slip back into the kind of partisan bickering that we’ve all heard before.  So we listen, wait rather impatiently, and hope they’ll come to their senses.

I missed a landmark on my way down the mountain and had to radically adjust my course in order to reach the saddle between the two summits.  It was a humbling experience, certainly, but at least I had sense enough to abandon the game trail I’d been following, admit my mistake, and change direction.  I was greatly relieved to tag the familiar wetland and slowly ascend the first summit.  I congratulated myself when finally I stepped onto the ATV trail.  Then I eased back to the parked car.

If my dog had used her keen sense of smell, I could have relied on her to find my way out of the woods.  But she was oblivious to her surroundings – too busy chasing chipmunks back and forth to even know how close we’d come to being lost.  It’s for the best that she remained oblivious.  I didn’t want to follow her anyway.  It’s better that I had to navigate on my own, thus keeping those skills up to snuff.  After all, you never know when you’ll suddenly find yourself off the familiar and well-worn trail.  This happens more often than any of us are willing to admit, and it’s never wise to rely too heavily on the aptitudes of others.

Tags: bushwhacking, globalism, land navigation