Short Walks 3

2023-07-09

Sometimes, a short walk just keeps goin’.

We decide to walk, but have no decision where. We look across the great field and DF suggests revisiting the distant Aspen Grove (See Here):

Exploring the Mystery of the Aspen Grove

I’m game. There is also a jeep trail near there that we could try.

We walk the massive field, finding spring water is creating mushy grasslands in spots. Here after a drought, we’re surprised. We could understand the darker green grasses, but standing water coming up out of the earth is something else. It had been a wet and up here, a snowy winter.

The grove is as if we never left it.

I walk along the edge of the field south to where I had found tire tracks.

Someone has camped here, but not recently. The circle of tire marks is vague and overgrown.

Following the trail there are several trees across the route. These may be about forest service discouragement. There isn’t supposed to be off-roading here.

This had been a cattle raising area, before it became protected. There is a rustic old wooden water tough rotting on the ground.

It has been quite a while since metal tanks came into use. It must be a very old artifact. We’re pleased to note that we are alone in a wilderness that is slowly regaining its dignity, as it was and untouched.

We saw the utter mutilation of the local stream on the other side of the fence. Large heavy cattle hooves have replaced the ecosystem’s deer and elk’s lesser imprint. Their piles of dung pollute the fresh spring water. We have watched the local stream species become decimated over years, the local renter/rancher’s redirection of water is now leaking for lack of repair.

The forest gets thicker, very tall aspen populate this neck of the woods. From the dense woods, there is a sound of calm here.

It is just beautiful, a pleasure, wonderful. I love the white bark forests and dark green pines and the shadow of the thick canopy.

This area obviously gets more of the rain’s blessings.

We T-bone another forest road. This one looks more official. I suspect that it winds around the base of the hill that the great field sits upon. It may take us right to camp. A short walk has become more. What is around a bend has displaced our momentary intentions, over and again.

We see tall dark figures hiding in the deep forest. Investigating, they are tall stumps of mammoth trees, the old growth. No Bigfoot, or dramatic mystery is found.

A mighty snake has hoisted itself up a dead tree to pose for a photo.

Imagination flows, as a mind is unshackled by the process of walking away from the mundane.

DF has been getting her sense of the trees, sniffing the individual aromas.

There are young aspen and older, the red pine and the spruce. Someday, we may experience their individual tastes.

The road bends in the right direction. At one point a fork has been cluttered with dead trees.

We’re heading back in a general direction toward our camp. A short walk has become a few miles through a beautifully rich place. We wandered out and are now miles from clothing, with no concern. There is a particular pleasure in our sense of our freedom.

Assured, we find ourselves just down the hill from the summer house. The unknown road has led to the familiar.

DF comically attempts to move a great log, when I suddenly notice two large turkeys running across the road ahead. I take off in pursuit, camera ready. I attempt to head them off, capturing an image as they re-cross the road, by figuring that they will avoid our campsite. As nature has planned it so well, they disappear.

Today, wandering naked, unprepared, has given a feeling of abandon, surrender, and trust as the road grows longer.

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