“We decide to drive in, as far as we can. Maybe one spot is a bit dodgy, and as the truck lurches to the right, falling off the shoulder with an alarming clunk, I think maybe, we’ve overstepped. But, no, it’s fairly firm, until it’s not. A full culvert washout, is a logical place to look for parking. I abdicate the wheel at her suggestion, as I’ve let everyone know, I don’t do reverse very well: too short, too dyslexic. “Could you clean off the rear view camera?” she says? I look, locate the fisheye, and rub it with my sleeve. “All good”, I yell. She backs the Chevy into a muddy track, just off the main logging road. Everything registers dead leaves, and not-yet-frozen. The day is hazy, not clear but warmer than it could be. A perfect day for a little exploring, not far from home but somewhere further into the wilderness than is easily found, by the average hiker. My off-road forays are never about hiking. I don’t really care how many fit-bit steps I take, or how much elevation is gained. I’m more about making vital connections, & map reading, and feeling my way into what has, previously, been hidden from me. Our first quandary, is an red plastic lump, somewhere down to the west of the trail. We look at each other, wondering simultaneously, whether it will be worth the effort. Being of like mind, we go after it. She yanks what looks like a cooler, or water tub, up out of a mass of wet leaves. “Shop vac”, we both say, almost in tandem. “This is so amazing!” she says, “I was just saying to Matthew, that we needed one!” There is a short pause, while she locates the nozzle, plastic tubing and filter. It’s obviously been discarded out here, for a while. “Do you think I should take it?” she says, not convincingly. We both stare at the refuse. “I can tell you that John bought me one that was about that size, and it was pretty cheap, new.” We are still loathe to let it go. Free stuff is pretty cool, when it’s viable. “Okay, no,” she says. And we return to the trail, invigorated to know there may be treasure on our route, yet realistic. It wasn’t long before we found the metal capsule, hanging from a tree. “This is so amazing!” I said, as I watched her unscrew its top. A long, rolled up scroll of blank paper, fell easily, into her hand. “It’s blank”, she said, as I grabbed it from her, sure that someone must have left us a message. There was no message. Can you imagine finding a message in a bottle on the beach, with nothing written inside? I tried to hide my disappointment. Well, at least we seemed to be on course, making the correct assumptions, that might lead us to Robert Frost Mountain. Who knows why all these distractions were tempting us to be mystified with confusion? I remembered how I’d felt, coming here alone, last year, even newer to the area than I was now. It takes a lot to get me to recite the Lord’s Prayer, and yet, in the twilight of my last escape from the National Forest Designated Wilderness Area, I’d done just that. It was not a place without ghosts, I surmised. We continued on our way; not an easy hike, but the maps I’d printed out hastily from some obscure website named “Peak Bagger” seemed to be taking us in the right direction. Why are these terrains so fraught, I wonder, so elusive. Centuries past, they may have been sheep farms, full of bleating livestock. Nothing to be afraid of. Our trudging followed a circuitous path, around one hump of a mountain, in a slow, upward climb, towards the second more fabled peak. Robert Frost? We’d scanned his poem, last minute, regarding this very place. A long poem, we couldn’t quite focus on, in the thrall of the real thing. I’d certainly pay more attention to it, once I was back home, and sitting warm by my wood fire and safely ... out of the woods. Hadn’t he said something once, about the woods being dark and deep? Well, he was on the money. I would not send my children out here, for a lark in the foliage. I don’t often say “creepy” but for some reason, I keep saying the word. We slog our way around what seemed like a perfectly reasonable, low mountain. It dumps us into a lost junction, from which we choose a path, into older growth forest. Up, and up. The gray, the cloudy day, the blue of distant, majestic elevations, become lighter, slightly optimistic. I’m so relieved to have a dog aboard, who seems as happy romping in and out of the scrub, as anyone could be. Ravens in a distinct pair, punctuate the upper level, as we break onto the overgrown temple of our destination. The path reveals more civil terrain, a few openings of field, a few gracious grand dame maples. An oddly located privy. The remnants, of a long abandoned fire tower. Almost nothing else. A sign. A lookout, hardly that, due to the passage of neglected time. The photos we take, in the late day sun, look strangely witchy. The sun is a cold, blinding orb, off to the south, and the west. Before we leave the summit, I suggest a lay-about, the tall grass. The ground is no fool. I turn cautiously, putting my back solid, my face to the sky. I’m not exactly as young and cavalier as I once was. Naive enough, to assume every place is the same, or as benevolent, as I’d hoped it would be. Empathic to that position, yet I find myself here, tapping into what I do like, about being renegade, and eager, and conscious; while the rest of the world goes mad.”
