“I’d passed the spot a million times. But this time, I was prepared with the knowledge of where a slim parcel of state land intersected with my roadway. I found the equally slim pull-off, and got my truck onto the shoulder. I guess it being frost heave season, helped me slow down, and contemplate the area with more patience. Not sure, in this case, what “wetlands” would mean or require. I stepped over an old mattress, and made my way down into the flood plain. It wasn’t that bad. Still flattened by recent snows, the walking was easy. I went south first, on the most obvious deer trail. It wasn’t long until I met the river. I don’t know why I’ve always let my mind wander, when it comes to Buel’s Gore. Steep terrain, filled with wild river passages, whichever way you want to look at it. Probably because I had to cross Vermont’s Appalachian Gap so many times, I’ve lost count. And Buel’s Gore, was never the worst of it, but held so many untold stories. I felt that, without the means to understand what I was feeling, yet. My brief winter living in Hanksville, adjacent to Buel’s Gore, might have something to do with it. But here I was today, on my first day, stepping into the Huntington River, at the farthest eastern reach of the Lewis Creek Wildlife Management Area. Go figure. That still makes little sense to me, but I know it would, with a little more research. I traipsed along the waterway, eventually wading into the river, for real, walking the shallows in my muck boots. The water was not dramatic, or overly high, another surprise. I kept walking, looking for a place I could safely cross over, and climb the opposing bank. There would be views of the Gore and the Gap on that side, I was unwilling, to forgo. I took a chance, and made it over. I knew I’d find something. And I did. A broken chair wedged in a tree, a game cam. I keep going. I went a ways up, to a platform, of firs. Many decades ago, not far from here, I’d driven up a very rough track of 4th class road, invited to dinner with a fledgling sugar maker, and his wife, to dine, surely by candlelight because the area could not possibly have supported power, back then. If anyone knows the area, you know who it was. This mountain, it seems, runs back into Starksboro, and likely has a more extensive history on that quadrant. Because these slopes are steeper than any you’d want to try to civilize. And maybe that’s why, over here, it’s the Gore. Hillsboro Mountain isn’t one that’s on hiker’s maps. It’s a rough piece of topography. Can’t deny, it felt good, just entering its lower parts, and gazing up, towards the peak. That same morning, driving the opposite direction around 7 am, on the same road, I’d passed young adults standing out in the brisk, early spring air, waiting for a school bus to arrive. Then I passed, the school bus. Imagine your parents, and family, are deep into sugar making, measuring each day, for what it will bring down the mountain and into the sugarhouse. I hope Vermont is never too homogenized with modern ways, that these traditional harvests become impaired. With the ways things are going, I’m worried, and on a bad day, fatalistic. You don’t know what you’ve got, ‘til it’s gone.”
