“Dunno why I decided to hike today. More accurately, I decided to explore a connector trail, thinking I’d be making a quick foray up the hill, merely to gauge its veracity. Surely easier than driving my usual route to town, on a touristy Sunday. I love the back roads, for all kinds of reasons. I enjoy the sparse company. I can slow down, stare at stuff, and even come to a standstill, without impeding traffic. Truth be know, there is none. Which was the case on FR 81. I turned in on it, having skied it last winter: a boring dead end, I knew in advance. Proceeding gingerly, the road looked good. Until it didn’t. I stopped and parked, and walked up a ways, to investigate something that looked weird. As it turns out, the road was gone on the left track, a culvert failure. I was able to turn around. It was an easy drive, back to where I’d seen another pull off. This was my entry. I locked up, and trod tall grasses some other vehicle had pressed them down. I eventually found the old logging road. Somewhere here, A. Johnson lumber lands segued into USDA land. The history of such territories lays in the minds of a small group. However, it’s also there to unpack, based on what can be found, clambering thru the thicket, on foot. I meant to only climb up, for a bit of knowledge. Ferns and maple saplings slapped around my shins, while deer flies buzzed my head. FR 81. Not much of it left, yet two distinct tracks remained. It did eventually meet up with a more established forest road I knew. I was suddenly driven to gain the higher elevation views. And kept walking. Up into the area we’d dubbed “Modor” due to a tangled mess of downed trees, that seemed to warn off the weak. Once passing thru this section, the reward would be sweet, and I wanted it. You could say that I wanted another chance, to find another passage, to another reality. That would be my pop-psychology analysis, in a nutshell. The ultimate path that is always sought, is the one that is out of reach. I have lived my life, holding fast to the vision of what has seemed unattainable, fixing my gaze upon it, with a passionate intensity. I don’t know if this is a flaw in my circuitry, or the diamond center of it. I would rather play this out amongst blackberry thorns, run the program tangled in vines, birches, thimble berry and baby maples, who all seem to be equally chaotic, reacting to what has been done to them. Perhaps a clear cut here, ten years ago. or so, and now ... here we are. I can’t tell, really, who is growing the thickets, vs. who is growing. I hope we all are. Those of us who climb to access a higher nature, unhung from the tabloids, unhinged by the lying carcasses of greed, this is our time to have at it. Someone will still be mowing your path. And this, is a reality, to be held close to the heart, as if our lives depended on it.”
