I returned home from my annual retreat late yesterday afternoon. There was a bit of a “step down” process from leaving the retreat site (The Appalachian Trail in MA) to pulling into the driveway in Mechanicsburg- I had a stopover in Wellsboro, PA to attend church and lead services at St. Paul’s on Sunday, making up for a snow cancellation from early January… This “step down” process gave me an extra night of quiet in a hotel and put me in full recovery mode after spending a week in the woods; I bought some skin pampering products at CVS to restore my roughed up hands, enjoyed a very long shower, placed the hotel armchair in a puddle of sun near the window to read a new novel that I’d picked up at the bookstore, and took myself out for a nice dinner. It was peaceful- and a little lonely -after several days in the companionship of my daughter Emma trekking up and down mountains, setting up the tent, taking down the tent, filtering water, taking pictures and enjoying a hiker’s diet of gummy bears, instant coffee, freeze dried dinners and tuna in foil packets.
This was our third annual hiking trip together in the week after Easter. Each year Emma’s school is in recess during Easter Week and it is a good week for me, too, to get away after a long Lent and busy Holy Week. We are section hiking the AT and, inch by inch, making our way to Maine. We are not “slaying miles” or “bagging peaks…” We take our time and keep the daily mileage in the single digits. This works for us as “armchair to trail” hikers; if we ever spent more than 5 consecutive days on the trail we might break into double digits. but in the interest of not risking injury and actually enjoying ourselves, we embrace modest goals. On this trip we hiked from Salisbury, CT to a few miles north of Great Barrington, MA.
There were some great highlights of our trip, but there was also the joy of the daily rhythm of backpacking that made it a real retreat: Meetings, emails, and appointments were traded in for following white blazes painted on trees, moving from one campsite to the next, and searching for level tent sites out of the reach of “widow makers” (dead trees). Progress was marked by reaching the summit of the day’s mountain (or two) and the satisfaction of zipping into one’s sleeping bag at the end of the day- (sometimes when it was not yet fully dark.)
The two of us have established a nice pattern to our backpacking; Emma takes the lead and knows just when to stop on an ascent so that I can catch my breath. She must have eyes in the back of her head to know when I have stopped and need a break. We both collect and filter our own water but she takes the lead on getting the tent set up while I get the stove started to make dinner. This year, Emma took on the fire making job; there’s nothing like a warm fire at the end of the day to add a certain “je ne sais quoi” to the camping experience.
We saw no bears or snakes, no deer- not even squirrels. I believe that our chipmunk count was 1. We do make a fair amount of noise tramping through the woods so that’s not a big surprise. We spied a few turkey vultures riding on the wind, heard countless woodpeckers and a couple of barred owls calling back and forth.
Sage’s Ravine was the first stop on our hike. It is a magical place on the CT/MA border that looks like something from a fairytale: emerald green, moss covered rocks along a crystal clear running stream… a steep rock face hemming in a field of ferns that runs right up to the water’s edge. Filtered sunlight through pine trees and a forest floor carpeted in pine needles, acorns and blankets of moss. Just stunning. After camping here for our first night we hiked along the stream in the ravine for about a mile to reach the next section of trail.
On our hike we climbed several mountains: Lion’s Head, Bear Mountain, Mt. Race, Mt Everett, Mt Bushnell, June Mountain and East Mountain. The terrain ranged from “gentle ups” to bouldering and climbing up steep ascents with the aid of wooden blocks nailed into rocks to grant us some footholds… and the “downs” ranged from pine needle strewn footpaths to gnarly, treacherous troughs of boulders and knee-busting rock hopping . The weather added its own challenges- our ascent to the top of Mt. Race was in a shower of blinding corn snow (big, granular pebbles of snow just short of hail) and, as we made our way across the exposed ledges of the mountain we were denied the spectacular views and saw only fog and snow. We had a special interest in Mount Everett since Emma’s first born is named Everett, and getting up there was a trip: we climbed up a super steep gully of rocks, picking each foothold carefully. When we got to the top we took refuge under some scrub pine, out of the whipping wind. Emma picked up a small stone from the top of Mt. Everett to bring home for her Everett, as a memento.
The cold temps continued for most of our trip (silk sleeping bag liners for the win!) and we made sure to sleep with our water filters and phone batteries in the bottom of our sleeping bag to ensure that they would not freeze. On the coldest morning we woke to slushy ice in our water bottles despite their having been wrapped in our extra clothes and stuffed into our boots overnight. There is a deep appreciation for coffee made tent-side and sipped while still half-zipped into one’s sleeping bag on a cold morning.
Hiking in April in CT/MA does not afford a lot of company on the trail. Most thru hikers are still in the southern states in April. We did meet one hiker, “Footbridge” who camped with us for 2 nights; he was completing his AT trek and had just the northern states left to do- CT, MA, VT, NH, ME. A seasoned hiker, social worker and former REI employee, he had some good trail wisdom to share with us and was good company along the way. He told us about his tradition of eating an entire cheesecake each time he stopped over in a town; and, in Great Barrington, he kept that tradition alive!
It was a blessing to have this break. I love my work but I also love the re-set after a busy liturgical season and I love spending time with my daughter and being in the woods as the season turns and winter (mostly) gives way to spring. The trees budding, the birds singing, the water flowing in the streams- it is not just a metaphor for new life, it is new life, and there is nothing that says “Easter” more than that.
Today I will go to the grocery store. I’ll sort through hundred of emails that have piled up and reluctantly put the tent and my backpack into our basement storage space. I’ll color in the 1/16 of an inch on my AT map that we traveled this week (inch by inch, literally, ) and offer a prayer of gratitude for this time afforded to me.
Our selves, our souls and bodies 