NEW YEAR LIKE A NEW TRAIL WAITING TO BE DISCOVERED
I’ve never met a trail I didn’t like.
For some reason a trail captures me and it’s not easy to stop hiking. I’ve frequently found myself a long way from home as the sun sets, requiring that I find my back in the dark.
You know the conversation. “Hey, don’t you think we should head back?”
“No, let’s just hike up to the top of this rise and see what the view is like.” Sound familiar?
When we get to the viewpoint, there is always something more interesting ahead, so we push on a little bit farther.
Sometimes it’s not the view. It might be a sound that attracts me to the next stop.
On a recent cool winter morning I was enjoying the silence in Anzaborrego’s Indian Canyon as I hiked alone. I was about to turn back when I heard the soft sound of trickling water.
Water is the precious source of life in the desert, so I continued on to discover a clear, running creek bubbling out of the rocks, flowing a short distance and then vanishing in the porous sands of the desert floor. The damp soil around the water was storyboard of visits by the local animal population.
There were bighorn sheep tracks, bobcat, coyote, raccoon and likely fox along with tracks of smaller critters. Even crows and a roadrunner had left their impressions here.
A trail is magical, enticing, and even addicting as new things are revealed while you plod along.
Seldom do I follow a trail for the destination. It’s the journey I find more satisfying. Focusing on a destination will surely distract you from all of the wonderful things to see along the way.
That journey is often filled with surprises, discoveries and unexpected encounters, like a recent face-to-face meeting with a gray fox that seemed more curious than startled as we met along the trail to Eagle Rock near Warner Springs.
For me, each year is like another trail. Sure, the year might be filled with different segments, but the year represents a continuous journey of discovery and adventure.
As another year comes to an end, another trail is turning to wonderful memories.
My journey included encounters with wildlife, like the battered old bighorn ram that seemed to share moments of connection as we encountered each other on a hot summer desert path.
There were encounters with bats dipping for insects in the warm water of a desert pond, or simply enjoying the chorus of bullfrogs at an impromptu spring pond created by abundant spring rains.
On a blistering summer night, I meandered over the open desert to discover scorpions that glow a fluorescent green under ultraviolet light. By the way, I’ll never go shoeless in the desert again.
The water’s edge at Lake Hodges is a great meandering path that pulled me continually forward while I looked for ruby-crowned kinglets who spend winters visiting here.
I hiked to the edge of creation on a snowy day to gaze into the Grand Canyon and felt dwarfed by the forces of time and geologic power that created this breathtaking place.
I wandered through the boreal forest of the arctic, crunching through fresh snow and marveling at the frozen beauty so foreign to a guy from Southern California. I’m sure the moose I encountered also wondered why I was there.
One of my most profound moments of the year was hiking onto a frozen lake in the dead of arctic winter with hopes of encountering the Northern Lights, known by the native Athabaskans as “The Happy Dancers.”
I stood with tears in my eyes at the beauty of this heavenly show that the natives consider to be the spirits of the departed coming to dance with you.
And there were the endless paths of California’s High Sierra that pull me deeper and deeper into the wilderness, often under a glowing canopy of aspens in full autumn glory.
One of those trails beckoned me onward on a soft fall day in the Eastern Sierra. Following a beautiful creek filled with hungry trout, I could hear the thunder of a waterfall in the distance. Pushing forward, I came to a magical place of beauty.
The sound masked my arrival and deer on the opposite shore seemed unaware of my approach.
I sat in awe at the scene of flowing water, blazing fall color and the forest tranquility.
Another year soon falls from the calendar. There are likely more trails behind me than ahead, but I will continue to explore, perhaps wander more than hike, but still marvel as the natural world around me.
I wish you happy new year and many happy trails.
Email ernie@packtrain.com or visit erniesoutdoors.blogspot.com.