W
e're vacationing up at the lake. Only a few leaves are still clinging to the limbs, and hiking the mountain surround is a strikingly open-faced affair. In summer, you are hedged in to the paths you tread, materially and psychologically -- you can scarcely see any other option than the path directly in front you. But in late autumn, the barriers disintegrate, and leaves cover the ground indiscriminately; if you're not careful you'll lose the path entirely by accident. Many times during my solo hike I wondered if I was being lured into the wilderness by sprites, so unclear was the way forward.
On my return trip, I noticed a few large boulders a few hundred feet off the trail, that would have been invisible in leafier times of the year. I stepped off the track, and wandered over uneven ground toward them. There were many more than I had at first realized, and they were much larger and ruder as well. This was a felling-ground, where great chunks of the steep slopes had succumbed to gravity, and tumbled to shatter on the floor below. Fresh bones, geologically speaking -- I wonder when they fell? Thousands of years ago? Hundreds? Dozens?
While they're hardly untraveled ground, I suspect they don't see many visitors. They're jagged and sharp, unevenly coated in moss. They carry inescapable grandeur with them. I can't wait to bring John when he's older; this would be a powerful place for a child.