Woods Wanderer

I hiked around Indian Brook Reservoir yesterday just to exercise my dog and stretch my legs.  It seemed like the thing to do since I was in the area and had the time.  When I lived in Burlington, I went there frequently.  Back then the park was in the country.  Now it’s on the fringe of suburbia.  Burlington, like so many other cities, is growing.

As I was hiking, I noticed how muddy and worn the trail has become.  Essex Town now limits access to the park to town residents during the summer.  Can’t say I blame them.  The place has been overrun.

A friend forwarded me an email the other day about the sorry state of the Long Trail, as reported by some disgruntled hiker.  Yes, having hiked the LT end-to-end, I must concur that sections of it are a muddy, eroded mess.  But so are sections of the Appalachian Trail in central Maine, and parts of the Northville-Placid Trail in the Adirondacks – trails I’ve also hiked.  Here in the Northeast, it doesn’t take much impact to wear thin-soiled mountain trails down to roots and bare rock.  With fifty million people living within a day’s drive of these trails, I’m surprised that they aren’t in worse condition.

One can always find fault with those who are supposed to maintain trails:  Essex Town, the Green Mountain Club, or whomever.  But the fact remains that trail maintenance requires manpower and money.  Join a trail maintenance crew for a day and see how much you accomplish.  Meanwhile, anyone who’s in the mood can go for a hike.  And for the most part it’s free.

As I hiked around the reservoir, it occurred to me that someday this place will be regulated to the point where I won’t be able to come here any more, or won’t want to.  The Town of Essex will eventually clean up this trail and those using it will have to pay, one way or the other.  Regulations have recently been put in place in the High Peaks Region of the Adirondacks, effectively halving the trail traffic there.  Those concerned about trail erosion think that’s for the best.  Will the same thing happen to Vermont’s Long Trail?  Probably, in due time.

I feel like one of the fortunate few.  I can grab my pack and go for a hike whenever I want.  I don’t like turning my ankle on an eroded stretch of trail any more than the next guy, but in a world where a billion people don’t even have enough to eat, complaints about poor trail maintenance seem mean-spirited, small-minded and ungrateful.

We are lucky to have trail systems available to us, cars to reach their trailheads, and time and health enough to hike them.  If I had to spend all of my time in developed places, constantly interacting with others, I would go stark raving mad.  So excuse me for not complaining about trail conditions any more than I do.  I find merit in even the muddiest of trails.

Tags: Adirondacks, Appalachian Trail, hiking, Long Trail

A few days ago, I dropped everything and headed for the hills.  I hiked the Long Trail south from Route 15, taking full advantage of unseasonable warmth and sunshine.  I wore a red flannel shirt to announce myself to hunters.  My dog, Matika, wore a blaze orange vest.   I followed trail markers up a dirt road hugging Smith Brook to a clearing about a mile back.  From there I would either stay on the trail or bushwhack in one direction or another.  I hadn’t decided yet.

At the clearing, I looked over and saw a pickup truck parked next to the hunting camp. I had walked past this camp many times before but had never seen anyone there.  Since I’ve been bushwhacking and guerrilla camping in these woods for a dozen years or more, I thought maybe I should stop by and get permission to do so.  The land between here and the northernmost boundary of Mount Mansfield State Forest isn’t posted, but it never hurts to get permission.  So I knocked on the door.

A tall, thin man about my age in full hunting regalia opened the door.  He immediately invited me and my dog inside.  We exchanged names.  Adrian sat down at the ancient Formica table and gestured for me to join him. He lit a cigarette.  Did I mind if he smoked?  Of course not.  What the heck, I thought, it’s his camp.

We talked about an hour.  At first we kept to safe subjects like the weather, what the beavers and other wild animals in the neighborhood were doing, and the beauty of the surrounding forest.  Then we kicked it up a notch: bears coming around camp, and coyote predation.  Did I like bear meat?  I prefer elk or deer, I told Adrian, adding that my favorite wild food is brook trout.  I’ve taken and eaten a few from the nearby stream, in fact.  With a nod he approved of that.

Am I a member of the Green Mountain Club?  Yes I am, I said.  Since I regularly hike the LT and other trails maintained by the GMC, I feel obligated to pay dues at the very least.  And with that announcement, the fun began.

Adrian told me his family has owned this land, through which the Long Trail passes, for many years.  His grandfather used to log it.  Now the logging here is done mostly by the Johnson Company, on the other side of the brook.  But every once in a while, some hiker would leave a note on Adrian’s door telling him he shouldn’t cut the trees.  It’s ugly and bad for the environment, or something like that.  A hiker left a note on his generator once, telling him it was too noisy.  Other hikers have broken into his camp – when the nearby shelter was full.  In recent years, the GMC asked for an easement, thus assuring that the Long Trail would forever pass through here.  Adrian’s family has always allowed the trail to cross their land but was offended by the Club’s desire for a 200-foot no-logging buffer on either side of the trail.  And so on.  I got the message loud and clear.  What started out as a friendly and casual arrangement had degenerated to Us-versus-Them.  Soon the LT would be rerouted to a strip of land the GMC had acquired just east of Adrian’s property.

Towards the end of the hour, we both agreed it was time to stop talking and get into the woods.  November days are short.  Before leaving, though, I mustered up the courage to ask Adrian’s permission to continue hiking and camping on his land.  He granted permission with a shrug of the shoulders, as if that was the least of his concerns.  So I thanked him and said goodbye.

A short while later, I was so lost in thought that I missed a turn and accidentally left the Long Trail.  But instead of backtracking, I continued down a snowmobile trail until it crossed a small brook.  Then I bushwhacked downstream to a cranberry bog I’ve been meaning to visit for years.  Eventually I retraced my steps, hiking out of the woods.  But when I passed the camp in the clearing, Adrian’s truck was gone.  I hope our conversation didn’t sour the day for him.  Nothing leaves a bitter taste in the mouth quite like politics does, no matter how civil the discourse may be.  I had tried to listen respectfully, but the ghosts of past belligerents still haunted the man.  And there would be more of the same in the future, no doubt.

Tags: hiking, Long Trail, politics, Vermont

I have a confession to make: I do phantom trail work. Only once, a dozen years ago, did I join other people from the local chapter of the Green Mountain Club and clear a five-mile section of Vermont’s Long Trail of brush, downed trees and other forest debris. Since then I’ve been soloing it. It’s a habit developed more out of compulsion than a sense of duty. I don’t premeditate it, I just do it on occasion as I’m hiking.

I’ve opened up water bars plugged with leaf litter. I’ve kicked fallen limbs off the trail and man-hauled more than one dropped tree out of the way – small ones, of course. Every once in a while, usually while hiking in the rain, I dig a new water bar, thus diverting water that’s eroding the trail. I’ve cleaned up more fire pits and broken down more abandoned campfire circles than I care to recall. I’ve picked up and hauled away my own weight in trash over the years. Why? I dunno. Because someone has to do it. Because I’m an old Boy Scout. Because I know that no hiking club has enough manpower to do everything that needs to be done when it comes to trail maintenance.

Certainly the thing to do, if you’re the least bit interested in helping out, is to contact your local hiking club and get on an organized trail maintenance outing. That way your efforts will go where they are needed the most. Besides, you’ll meet some nice people in the process – others like you who care about the woods. But if you’re a loner like me, why not kick a stick aside every once in a while?

Last May, I hiked a section of the Long Trail shortly after the snow melted. I was out there just a tad earlier than I should have been and left a few deep, long-lasting bootprints where the trail was still very soft and muddy. Partly out of penance for my thoughtlessness, I cleared that section of debris.

I don’t feel comfortable bragging about the good deeds I’ve done on the trail then advising others to follow suit. Personally, I find that kind of self-righteousness nauseating. And it’s usually disingenuous. But I can’t help but think that the world would be a better place if more people would just help out on the sly, in the woods or elsewhere, when no one’s looking.

I don’t believe in an otherworldly heaven where we are rewarded for our good works after we die. But I do believe that we can experience something like heaven right here and now, especially in the wild. Often when I pick up a piece of trash along the trail, I daydream about some young pilgrim wandering through the woods, right behind me perhaps, experiencing a sense of deep-forest heaven for the very first time. I like to think the absence of obstacles or trailside trash will help that pilgrim stay in the mode just a little bit longer.

Humankind has enormous problems to contend with. Mass extinction, global warming, overpopulation, genocide, gross resource mismanagement – the list of serious concerns is long. I’m not so foolish as to think that a little trail maintenance will make any difference in the greater scheme of things. But it can’t hurt. And you never know who will be on the trail behind you. Maybe it’ll be a five-year-old who deserves to see the wild in a pristine state or as close to that as possible. Maybe the next Gandhi. You never know.

Tags: hiking, Long Trail