(HOST) The first snow of the season for much of our region reminds commentator Willem Lange of rambling in the woods, and taking a break for reflection in the ruins of an abandoned logging camp.
(LANGE) Red oak, soft maple, sugar maple leaves – old friends who make this place home – whisper around my rubber-bottomed boots. Trembling and big-toothed popples and three different birches. Just enough snow, softening in the sun, that walking is almost noiseless. The skirt of an old cook stove leans against the trunk of a tree.
White ash leaves. They fell early; they’re almost covered by the later maples. An old hollow log, lying in a boggy spot, miraculously preserved. For years we filled it with rock salt for the deer. Beech leaves, bright copper, crisper and noisier. Moose maple, witch hobble, uncertain what color to be when their chlorophyll dies.
I pass the false notch and Hummingbird Notch, and turn left away from the brook, up into Beartrap Notch to the old beech log, where we’ve stood for over fifty years to watch for deer. The log is now only a black, shrunken stain in the leaves.
The trail steepens. I climb over bare ledges of dark granite. My tuque comes off; then the fleece shirt; I tie it around my waist and sit down to cool off. Ancient maples, their trunks twelve feet around, reach up fifty feet before they branch. A poor place to be in a windstorm. Down below, a pileated woodpecker has struck the mother lode; you could use that tree for a hog trough.
With six hours of a beautiful day still ahead, the possibilities are limitless: I can go up or down, left or right, by trail or bushwhack, and either hunt or climb. I’m not far from an old logging camp I can’t always find. Time to go look for it; never know which chance’ll be my last.
Past a granite knob on my right, I turn toward a patch of spruces. Pushing through into a little flat in an otherwise steep valley, I try to pick a spot where I’d build a camp if I were setting up here. And there they are: the broken remains of an iron stove. "Wilkinson," it reads, "Patents from July 30, 1867 to Jan’y 27, 1874. A few feet away, a tiny brook hidden in leaves; the cook must have dug out a dipping hole for water. This was a small camp, with a few choppers and teamsters, and a forge for repairing tools and shoeing horses.
I find a dry spot, brush off the snow, and sit down against a mossy rock. It’s warm in the sun, above freezing, with no wind. I have a book with me, and half a Mr. Goodbar. I reach over to the little brook with the plastic cup I’ve carried since 1956 and dip up a little communion water to share with the ghosts of this silent place. It’s not quite noon; all my options are open. Behind me, the mountain beckons, less than a mile and about 500 feet higher. Time to decide after I read, have a little lunch, and maybe even take a nap.
This is Willem Lange in the Adirondacks, and I gotta get back to work.