Hiking

New Year's Mountains

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View from the summit of Giant LedgeNear the summit of Wittenberg Mountain, the wind howling through my wool hat, I heard the chickadees. I looked over into the Spruce trees and there were the bright little birds, tilting their black caps at me, as if to get a better look at this person on snowshoes, trudging her way through the snow. My appreciation for the Chickadee soared. Here they were, just over 3,500 in such cold, singing away. My toes were cold, my ears burned, my fingers were numb. I didn’t feel like singing.

It was January 1, and we were five, ringing in the New Year by heading for the summit of Wittenberg. Wittenberg is 3,780 feet and is neighbors to Cornell and Slide in the Burroughs Range of the Catskills. The guidebook describes the climb up Wittenberg as “extremely difficult.” I had been up the mountain before, but on a spring day. And, I was feeling fresh that day. On this New Year’s hike I started out with sore legs; the day before, I had hiked up Giant Ledge and Panther with my friend Max.

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Hiking Alone

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Snow Geese coming in for a landingThere was one other car at the trailhead for Brace Mountain, in the Taconic Mountains that divide New York and Connecticut, then Massachusetts.  From my car, the views down into the valley are wide, open fields filled with dry, half stocks of corn. It was a warmish late fall day, but I still had on a hat and gloves; I was ready for the cold. There was no trail register, but a sign told me that the trail ahead, at least for the next .2 miles, is steep. Hard. The sign made me smile.

I had wandered my way eastward to this trailhead, stopping at one of my favorite farms to admire flocks of Snow Geese coming in for whatever leftover corn they can find on their route south. Since I didn't know when or if I was going to hike this trail, I haven't let anyone know I'm out here. I know this is not smart--you should always let someone know your hiking plan. But I'm feeling cut loose in many ways, so I'm out here, wanting my inner and outer worlds to align.

It's a strange feeling, this sense of being unaccounted for. It’s not that there is no one to care; it’s that no one is allowed to care. I want to feel alone. This could lead to a sense of loneliness or alternatively, to a slight euphoria, the elation of freedom. It's the later feeling that took hold as I started up the steep trail.

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From Snow to Spring Beauties

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West Kill is a small town wedged in a wide valley in the Catskill Mountains. The houses nudge each other in the small town, then out route 42 the houses space out, become farms. I wonder about the brave farmers who first settled this valley.

“Do you think you would be lonely living out here?” I ask our car full of women, all dressed for a day hike up West Kill peak. I used to romanticize living far from everyone and everything, craved silence the way some people crave chocolate.  Mary responds quickly, “Yes.” I would be too, I admit.  Though I often spend long days alone I always see another person: the post mistress, or Mikee the baker where I buy a brioche on Wednesday mornings. In the bakery I’ll know someone, share a few words, a laugh. I may only talk to another person for five minutes in a day but that is five minutes of touching the world. I think of these moments as ballast, keeping me upright. This Catskill town’s emptiness feels vast. To add to it, there is evidence, deep, piled up, destroyed evidence of Hurricane Irene from this past fall. Some bridges have been rebuilt, some remain in progress. But the river bed is wide, wider than is needed for the stream that now flows through. The debris that lines the riverbank includes massive logs and piles of brush. Looking at it I sense the force of the water that swept through here, altering this landscape.

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Sycamore Canyon

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winding dirt road into Sycamore CanyonThe Guide to birding around Tucson writes of Sycamore Canyon: “Sycamore Canyon has been called the most interesting and also the most difficult birding area in Arizona.…It is rugged, remote and can be a route for smuggling people and illegal drugs…There is no trail, only the streambed; the route is strenuous.”

So of course I want to go. It’s my third day in Tucson and I had spent the day before in Catalina State Park, a place I hiked regularly when I lived in Tucson and a place that is far from remote or rugged. Families with children crawled their way up the wide sandy paths, and played by the stream that trickles through the valley. I had found lots of wonderful, new for me birds there: the Green-Tailed Towhee, the Pyrrhuloxia (known to locals as a Pyro), and an unidentifiable Hummingbird perched atop an ocotillo. I now wanted away from the crowds. Sycamore would be an adventure.

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