[at-l] Hiking

[kahley7 <kahley7@ptd.net>]

I hit the woods as planned.  Pre dawn drive through a wispy fog to get to
the place we call Kahleyland, cause I'm the only one who hikes there.
Actually it's the MST, and I planned a combo dirt road walk and berry
bush bolder hop, just for diversity.  I've missed the peak of the trees
but the hills were still atrociously beautiful, even in the dull light that
filtered through steely grey edged clouds.  For some reason, looking
out on the next ridge, I decided that it looked as though someone had
dyed giant kernels of popcorn in gold and orange and red and stuck
them on the hills.  Which brought to mind that sickly sweet taste of
the pink popcorn balls that used to be a feature around Christmas time.
I could not get that taste out of my mind and nothing in my pack could
even approach that particular flavor of pink but I grazed happily
none the less.  I started out on a road walk cause my feeble attempts
at hiking the trails around the hospital these last weeks proved just
how dangerous being distracted on a Pa trail can be.  I needed the
company of trees and I needed to work my body but I knew it would
take some time to clear my mind to the point where I could walk and
chew gum and the same time.

The road climbed, escorted by Cherry Run which has recovered nicely
from the summer's drought. It's a tiny N>S gap which gets little sun so
mosses and ferns coat all.  Some mushees and fungus were stubbornly
holding fast to their brief time in the living world....their duty, to help 
bury
the dead. I've been here sooo many times that I know some of the trees
by heart and was pleased to see a certain tree that fell thirty years ago still
clinging to it's tree shape.  Amazing things trees.  Such rough odds
in the beginning.  Maybe one in a million chance that a seed lands
on soil and not stone and that it isn't a squirrels lunch.  And if it happens
that there is a bit of rain and a bit of sun and nothing steps on it or
browses it, it might grow for hundreds of years.  And when it dies of
old age or a flood strips it's hold on the ground and it falls, it is still a
tree for many decades.  Moss grows and lichen and fungus build
a bit of soil and bugs make inroads for a lucky seed that get's stuck
in a trunk crevice and grows....feeding on it's fallen kin.  Such a nice
system.  Not like us.  We die and they pump our bodies full of toxins
and lock us up in bronze and concrete and plant that which will never
grow in a field that would be much nicer if it were filled with trees and
natural stones. Now do you see why I started on a road <g>?.

The water noise and the wind and the climb slowly cleared my mind
so that when I came to the turn off to the trail, I felt ready.
This was the first time in twenty years that I hiked with out dogs.  I
didn't feel I could care for even one and it felt so strange to be out there
alone.  The climb continued through low berry bushes and was just about
perfect for eyes down zombie mode. Away from the deep canopy, as I neared
the crest I realized just how many of the leaves had dropped and how much
sky was coming in.  And what a sky!  To the left, the grey steel reigned
(and rained?) but began breaking up over head.  How anything like a
cloud could have edges has always fascinated me.  But edges abounded
in every imaginable shade of grey until, just over my right shoulder, they
broke and tiny to substantial patches of blue broke through.  I suddenly
realized that each of the blue patches was a different shade of blue.....
howsit possible?  I'm stumbling snailike along, eyes skyward, wishing for some
super panoramic camera so I could take a picture of all this and have it
made into the mother of all jigsaw puzzles and WHOOOOOOOSH------
FWRUAAAPPPT----SNORT------BANG.  I kick up a turkey which damn
near took my head off, which startled a couple deer which I would have known
were there if I'd had a dog with and the same time a shotgun blasts in the 
distance!
Talk about a quick trip down to earth in both the physical and metaphysical
sense!!!!!  I untangled my legs from my staff and laughed myself silly until I
cried, and I cried and I cried and I cried till I started to laugh again.

As I lay there in a fetal heap, the only sunbeam I saw all day passed so close
that I could reach out and touch the ground where it landed.  I love the woods
and at times like that I think it is not unrequited.  And all I thought 
about for the
next three miles was Bazzooka Double Bubble bubble gum.

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