I got a bit of a late start today - hit the trail around 9:30AM. I didn’t mind too much because I was looking for a little sun to perk things up after several weeks of gray wintry weather. It was cloudy and 31F starting out, but the weather man was calling for sunshine by mid-day.
Getting in to the forest was tricky as the access road is a seasonal limited maintenance jobby. I figured it wouldn’t be too bad as deer hunting season just ended so it had been used recently and the snow isn’t too deep since the past couple of days have been thawing. I made it in and back out again without much trouble, but if we get any more snow that will be the end of it for a while.
Here on top of the hill it is blustery with light snow swirling around the feet of the trees. I photographed some interesting old stumps and some leaves frozen in the snow and generally wandered around for a couple of hours until my ears got cold.
I dropped down into a ravine and got out of the wind. It’s calm and quiet down here – it is colder temp-wise, but without the wind it feels warmer. That is it felt warmer until I inevitably filled my boots with icy water from the stream. I generally try to keep my feet dry especially in the winter, but it never seems to work out. Although my boots are waterproof, there is nothing they can do when I slip off a rock while crossing the stream and plunge my leg into a pool up to my knee.
Now it’s early afternoon and my ears are warm, but my feet are freezing. The sun has come out as predicted, however the low winter angle prevents any actual sunbeams from reaching me – I’m still in blue twilight. I look longingly back up to the ridge whence I came now bathed in warm yellow sunshine. I decided that now would be a good time to scale the wall and take a little break, have a snack, and catch some rays. Ahhh, the sun and the effort of climbing up have made me nice and toasty.
I cut sideways across the ridge until another ravine blocked my path. I walked and slipped and slid my way down to the bottom and worked my way back up stream. At one point I hit a waterfall that was big enough, icy enough, and filled with enough water that I couldn’t just walk up and over it. I had to work the side of the wall hanging from tree to tree. I stopped for a breather while dangling from some exposed tree roots when I noticed a smell.
I found it a very nice smell. It was the scent ( barely perceptible) of dirt, soil, decaying leaves, tree roots, bugs, whatever. It was earth. It reminded me of spring though I was surrounded by snow and ice. A bare patch of soil under and around the tangled interlacing tree roots that I was holding onto had a little bit of sunshine on it – a microcosm of spring. Ah well, spring may be in my head, but winter is still nipping at my toes – better get moving.
I emerged from the top end of the ravine just as the sun was setting. I stopped by a crumbling old stone foundation where maybe a barn had stood years ago and took some photos of some odds and ends. A spiral of old rusty barbed wire and a bucket with no bottom anymore and some bullet holes in the sides to boot. Time to head back toward the car before it gets too dark.
MDW
The holidays have just taken up all my time lately.We took a trip back to Indiana for a week to see the Hoosier side of the family, I’ve spent hours helping the boy put together robots and what not that require “some assembly”- that kind of stuff.
