Rambling Wood

Over the top of countless grey-green crests the wind sweeps clearing its path between the sparse tree trunks. It moves not in gale force gusts but as a ghostly current steadily precarious and icy cold. Above two thousand feet it often leaves snow. Not deep snow, not usually in November, but a layer as thin and crisp as a frozen cotton sheet. Beneath is another blanket, one formed by decaying hardwood leaves, birch and oak, smooth and jagged, stubbornly interlocked and bound by ice. With every step comes a double crunch. The sound is a reminder of the lack of footfalls. The stomping of the early June boy scout troop, the hiking pole prods of the mid-July gear fanatic, and the hemp laden scuff of the late August college hippy are all completely covered over. Pathfinding is not easy. But frozen to my back are supplies, a nylon collection of tent, sleeping bag, and rain clothes packed as carefully as a parachute.
Backpacking in the mountains of New Hampshire at the onset of winter is a lot like a slow motion sky dive. I came up with that metaphor at 2500 feet while watching the sun sink still more than a mile and a half from the sheltered campsite of my destination overwhelmed by the feeling that I had already jumped.
I was facing a somewhat unfamiliar backpacking decision. I had to either push on through the darkness and fatigue over ice trickled granite or pitch my lightweight tent directly a top the nuptial bed of Autumn and dirty old Uncle Winter.
The rapidly dropping temperature warned me to take one thing at a time. First I had to get down into a valley. I switched on my headlamp and began to move through the fog of my illuminated breath. I could feel the temperature rise but only slightly as I progressed into taller and thicker groves.
The ground was as hard as the surface of Neptune and every tree bemoaned the cold. It wasn’t long before dark thoughts began to prowl about in my imagination. To compensate I deluded myself with exaggerated expressions of my bravery. It worked, kind of. I slowly became more comfortable with my eerie decent. But thrill, fear and shadow mix to create a kind of sinister inkblot. With the slightest slip of imagination all dangers become possible and all possibilities become dangerous. It becomes a very real challenge to not think of black bears or bull moose or those little blue fuckers from Whitley Strieber’s Communion. To stay focused the goal-oriented rational of our ancestors (the ones favored by Darwinism) has to take over. Call it survival, individualism, or even existentialism but it doesn’t take long for the drive for self-preservation to start running things. Everything starts becoming elemental. And for me on that bone-chilling night the element that concerned me the most was fire.
It states quite clearly on the New Hampshire State Park’s website and in the Monadnock–Sunapee Greenway Trail guide book that lighting a fire is illegal. But legality is not really a part of natural law, per se. That night I belonged to the forest and as much as it allowed the forest belonged to me. I began, unashamedly, to visualize the fire as I walked. I could see myself lighting it (nearly) from scratch. I could see myself dancing around the blaze getting lost in its crackling rhythm. And as the smoke and flames rose above the forest I could see my head tilted back, my mouth wide open. I would offer up to the celestial network, to the god of Abraham, to Zeus and Buddha or any other concept that might still have its ear to the ground, a mighty yawp, a metaphysical “fuck you”. I am here. Or, in the enduring words of Gloria Gaynor, I will survive.
By the time I actually made it to the campsite I was shaking from my fatigue as well as the cold. With a little resolve and two steadily dripping nostrils I filled my pockets with oily birch bark fluff and my arms with branches. I set the bundle ablaze and sat myself on an icy log. There was no chance of me dancing or even rejoicing. I whispered a quiet yawp as I watched the cold air slowly push the fire back. As it started to smolder I surrendered. I didn’t have the energy to collect more wood. What little I had left was to be utilized in setting up camp. When I finished, toes and fingers stiff, I reached into my food bag and grabbed a handful of jerky to stick in my cheeks. I tied off the bag and flung it into a nearby tree, not nearly high enough to keep bears off. With all of my clothes on, including my rain pants, I slid into my chilled sleeping bag.
The night was as frosty as one of Bruegel’s winter landscapes. Painfully sleepless. One of those nights that reveal just how methodically slow our planet turns. As the wind picked up so did the howl of the trees. Half conjured, half dreamt my thoughts almost went wild. The only thing to do was to think warm thoughts. Wine, sex, and hot tubs. Sleep. Wake. Whiskey, love, and fire. Sleep, wake and so on.
Head covered by hat, hood and mummified sleeping bag I was actually startled by the morning light when I finally peaked my weary eyes out. Through the cursed mesh windows of my tent I could see a multitude of trees pacified and still, outlined by red sky. I got out reluctantly and dug my toes into my frozen boots. Systematically (without a single recognizable thought) I packed everything up. I hadn’t used the fuel for my camp stove so I poured some on the fire pit. With a lit strip of bark I started an inferno and stood dangerously close. Like a line cook adding salt to the soup of the day I would pour, at my whimsy, a little more fuel onto the flames. When it ran out I let loose my morning piss then quickly started the eight mile trek back to my rental car. The thought of pub food, draft beer, and a little bit of pride was more than enough to drag me off the unbeaten path and back to the apathetic pavement.