Deep in the woods

This morning I took Chaucer for our walk. I have this route that I sometimes take if I am up for a bit more hiking than normal. It is an amazing route through Rutland State Park. It goes far off of the main road and winds down a couple little known, older dirt roads. The whole park is barricaded off for the winter, but these roads are always closed, so normally people don't walk them.

The route is beautiful. It winds past beaver brooks and into deep pine forests. It eventually leads up a very large hill, large enough to give a view of the surrounding land, that had at one point been cleared for a beautiful farmstead. All of the buildings in the park were torn down, but the field stone foundations remain, and this one is spectacular. It is curved and huge and completely surrounded by massive old maples. Normally I turn around here and head back and the trip takes a couple of hours to walk. Today however, I decided to follow my friend Henry Thoreau's advice, and head off of the beaten path.

I met a guy up on this hill once. It was weird, I had no idea he was there. He just walked out of the woods and said hi. He was kind of funny in an odd way. But he said that he knew a way that the route circled back to the main road. It really was because of the quote that I mentioned a couple of posts back that I decided to try to find the way. I walked to the end of the road, and then kept walking.

Soon, a path opened up and wound its way up to the true peak of the hill and then back down in to the deep woods. There were no real animals out. It was really quiet, but, there were no bugs either... so I call that a win. I walked following this winding path for over an hour into the woods. Most of the time I could follow it, but a couple of times I had my doubts. It was really reassuring to have Chaucer with me though, not because he would protect me.... mostly because I am pretty sure he would get eaten first :) A couple things of interest, I kept on finding coyote scat on many of the prominent rocks in the path, I bet they do that to mark the path, (see the pic) and I also spooked a pack of deer that had been feeding. At first I thought it was a moose and I would be lying if I said that I wasn't a bit freaked out. But they moved in complete silence through the trees and were gone. Chaucer, had no clue... obviously.

Eventually the path lead out to some powerlines and then out to the main road. It has been a very long time since I have been in the woods by myself without a clue as to where I was heading. It was beautiful, and really rewarding. And, now I have a circle that I can follow whenever I have a spare few hours. I am posting several pictures from the hike below. In one you can see the narrowed path. This was when it was most visible. In another you can kind of see how big the maples by that house were. The picture doesn't nearly capture it. All in all it was a really beautiful morning.

db