I’ve been out of the woods too much this spring. I’ve been working a couple of jobs, keeping up with things online and writing books. But I haven’t been out in the wild a lot – my source of inspiration and the place I like to claim I know a bit more about than the average vacationer touring a national park. And so, a little earlier this week, I put other things on hold, cut off communication for a bit, took up my tent and backpack and went to spend a day in the Pennsylvania woods.
The location was somewhere I’ve been curious about for quite a while, a network of tiny streams in a remote part of south-central Pennsylvania which run together to make a stream large enough to support brook trout – this was at least what the map suggested. This was a high-elevation watershed by Pennsylvania standards, sitting at around 2400 feet. I spent a good bit of the morning driving generally east from home to reach this place, transiting highway, country roads, then many miles of dirt road to reach a gate which stopped me miles from this tiny flowage – this was unexpected. So much the better, I thought; this gate stops everyone else too who’d like to motor up to the water and drop a line.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve carried the heavy pack any distance, about a year and a half, in fact, since the day I marched it down the National Mall in Washington… but that’s a long story. Starting out, I had some apprehension about being hassled by a game warden or some other sort of forest surpervisor. With the litany of rules applying to public lands, I was sure to be in violation of one or two of them. But this was an unfrequented place, remote already where I’d parked, deep woods where I was going.
The road was newly graveled with loose railroad-grade gravel, the stuff that tears up feet like little else, especially while carrying a heavy pack; believe me, I know. The first mistake I’d made, and realized fairly quickly, was to walk in without any kind of map. I don’t use GPS and here in Pennsylvania, I’m very seldom in woods so extensive that I can’t put the map in my head and then navigate around by compass. But I was in a different kind of environment today. I could have spent quite a while in search of a road out here if I’d become lost. Then too, a map would have done me only so much good. In places like this, especially in places that are timbered from time to time, little roads come and go, some disappearing into the underbrush while others were cut in and graveled last year to accommodate trucks.
All this is to say that I failed to find the right turn to the west and continued to hike north for about five miles. The sky looked more and more ominous as I went on and I knew I was in for a soaking. I didn’t want to be wet and lost out here. I thought I could get back alright but would I recognize all the right turns when heading south again?
I climbed up and down on the old woods road I followed, a place that hadn’t seen traffic in quite a while, especially because of the gates. At the top of one rise I found the largest patch of blueberries I’ve ever seen in Pennsylvania accompanied, of course, by very fresh bear tracks in the muddy parts of the road.
I walked west on a newly cut-in woods road at about the five mile point and sat and had lunch after a bit. I hadn’t carried a load like this in years. My legs are generally strong but muscles that hadn’t been worked in about a year and a half now throbbed. How difficult would it be to get back out? Of greater concern though was lack of water. This was very odd because Pennsylvania is full of springs, creeks and rivers but I really hadn’t crossed water during this walk. My route had clung decisively to a ridgeline. This meant that I had no clues as to where the stream I was looking for might originate up here and also, I would need something to drink, especially if I were spending the night, as intended.
I decided that this was it for today’s failed expedition. I hadn’t found this hidden trout stream and hadn’t even found enough water to stay and spend the night. I’d follow the route I’d come in on back to the car now and go home. And, in reality, a bed tonight and roof over my head sounded good. I wanted an excuse not to sleep on the ground.
Before starting back I endured one rain shower, enough to convince me I was doing the right thing to leave the woods for today – this was a wet and uncomfortable place. But a mile or so back, I noticed a little trench in the woods heading downhill and away from my path, dry like everything else. I dropped the pack for a bit to have a look, a little thunder sounding now, warning of another drenching. I walked downhill just out of sight of the road and found a second trench meeting the first, but this one had water flowing along the bottom! It was just a spring, too small for fish, but it was flowing water.
I’d already abandoned the woods for the day in my mind. I wanted hot food, a bed and a shower. But I’d come out, among other things, to sleep on the ground, to be without basic comforts and to mingle with the wild animals. So, here was water; I could do at least some of what I’d set out to. And the rain was imminent; it was time to decide. A few minutes later, I was crossing the brook with the heavy pack and then finding a soft level place in the duff. And as soon as the food was strung up in a tree, the tent set up and the pack covered, it did start to rain and, in fact, poured. Would I be OK in this old bivy tent that had already put in more nights of service than I had any right to expect?
Furthermore, would it get too cold at this elevation tonight for the bag I’d brought? Would the spot I’d chosen for a tent accumulate water in this kind of a downpour, leaving me sleeping in a swamp? Was my food bag high enough to keep it out of reach of the bears? I didn’t think so and I suspected that a scheming bear had been watching from the shadows as I’d hung it, salivating and conniving to eat my breakfast before I could.
The woods grew darker and I fell asleep listening to the rain at some point.
It was still dark but I knew this was morning. I felt like I’d slept my deepest sleep since… well, since last time I’d slept on the ground. I watched the very dark shade of gray in the tent ceiling above my face become lighter and lighter over the course of half an hour and I heard more and more birds join in the chorus outside. As I unzipped the bag, I realized that the temperature was still very comfortable and a breeze began to riffle the tent and leaves around me.
I slipped on wet shoes and stretched. The sun was just cresting the eastern horizon and its first rays were hitting the emerald greens of the ferns all around me. Pennsylvania had desperately needed a good, long soaking rain and we’d just gotten it. The birds all around seemed to celebrate the occasion. My food pack still hung exactly where I’d left it.
When I talk to novices about getting into the woods, I ordinarily downplay the role of gear in preparedness, persuading instead that the emphasis should be placed on mental and physical preparedness. The brief account of my little adventure should illustrate what I mean when I speak of mental preparedness. This means feeling comfortable out in the wild, at ease, without undue worry. That can only be gotten by spending time out there, preferably alone. The toughest part of a long hike is typically the first two weeks. Beyond this, a hiker becomes mentally acclimated and the trail and the wild world he moves in come to feel natural.
But it doesn’t take long to revert. Just a couple of years back, I walked for eight months but now, after many months of living indoors with electricity, running water and a comfy sofa, I feel ill at ease starting out alone in the woods again. I worry more than I need to.
I sat in a sunny patch with my back against a tree, flames leaping from my tiny wood-burning stove. I had a smile on my face and was about as comfortable as I could imagine being, after a really excellent night’s sleep. Birds kept me company and the spring that trickled past kept me well-watered. And the bears actually hadn’t eaten my breakfast, much like on virtually all of the preceding hundreds of nights of doing this. And on the way back a little later, I stopped at the blueberry patch where I ate the bear’s breakfast.
Woodrise 