Ice Age Trail Alliance
Lodi Chapter

The snowfall the night before had been more plentiful than expected. As I pull into the parking area, I hear the rubbing of tires digging into deep snow. Early mornings like this are a gift. No one had yet been on the trail. Mine would be the first set of snow prints on the trail. As I step out of my vehicle, the crispness of the cold air massages my face and lungs, bringing a sense of elevated awareness. I look up at the clear blue of a cloudless sky, turning my face toward the sun, breathing in deeply.

The snow had laid a three-inch blanket on everything-every tree branch, every small twig, every dried Queen Anne's lace top, everything-making new patterns of light and dark visible in the tangled forest.

After passing under a white pine, my eyes spy a male robin, sitting in the fork of two branches. His puffed-up chest a deep russet, deeper orange than I ever remember seeing in a robin. He quietly watches me, completely still on his perch. I stand and watch him. I see his eyes blink, noticed his yellow beak lit by the sun.

"How clearly I can see," I think.

As I walk, I notice snow gently falling from trees. A gentle breeze blows a mist of snow across the trail. My vision momentarily obscured by a curtain of glinting powder. As I walked through it, small cold crystals land on my face, quickly melting into droplets of water. I pause under a tree to look at some tracks, a clump of snow lands right on my forehead and eyes.

"Drasted," I complain as I tried to wipe the water from my glasses with my wool shirt. Smudgy glasses back on, I continue my walk.

As I begin climbing up the trail, I become aware of a cranky voice in my lower back. I adjust my stride continuing up the hill. I remark to myself something about resolve of focus needed to accomplish certain activities as the body/mind ages-a recent dimension of my life.

At an old logging road, I stop to inspect a small set of tracks. I start to count toes, looking for claw marks, when a sharp, musky scent helps my identification. I turn and continue on my walk, not really interested in seeing the maker of these tracks, although my yellow lab certainly maintains his interest. I gently call him back to me.

A morning like this makes me feel that I can begin again. I will be more generous with my time, give back more. I will discipline my time when I get home from work. I will stay in better contact with old friends, I will...I can be in the moment. I call myself back from the whipping post of all the things I need, and need not to, be doing.

I get to the other side of the trail segment and stand on the road. My yellow lab and I watch a border collie, as we often do. The collie constantly cruises up and down the 1/2-mile driveway to his house. If a car comes he runs, barking the whole time, to the car, then runs alongside the car, barking the whole time, until the car stops at his house. He then goes back down the hill, barking the whole time, and begins the process again, this time chasing no car, barking the whole time.

My yellow lab and I glance at one another as if to say, "Why?"

My dog starts nudging his way toward the trail, mostly because the barking dog is getting closer to our observation point. He doesn't seem interested in meeting the barker.

On the way back, I check out the tree where I know raccoons to live- no prints around the opening of raccoon house. I stop to admire the oak trees I call "kissing trees." Two oak trees have somehow grown together at their mid-trunk. I imagine possible scenarios leading to this abnormality. I think about Native Americans, who used trees such as this to mark their trade routes. I imagine myself as a nomad, walking in the early morning to hunt for food for my family. I look down at my Gortex(r) shoes, thinking it would be easier to imagine if I had moccasins on my feet. I sigh with the remembrance of many sorrows. I look up at the glorious blue of the sky.

When I get to the area I call the cathedral, I stop, sit down on a rock and look around. This is my church. I see "God" in every surface. I imagine that I can see a web of connectedness at the atomic level. I try to imagine separate solid surfaces as a unified field of energy. Just when I get a glimmer of this, I am abruptly pushed from my rock, landing hard on the solid ground, snow on my hands. My yellow lab is ready to keep moving and has not-to-gently nudged me to get going.

At an overlook, I marvel at a knoll in the distance. It is covered in snow, which from the distance looks like hoar frost. A fog circles below, creating a halo effect. The deep blue sky makes a sharp contrast to the white everywhere. I can't stop looking. I don't want this vision to stop. How can something be so stunning, I wonder.

I pass through a stand of Aspen with trunks that appear grayer than usual in contrast to the pristine, sparkling snow. I take a few last deep meditative breaths as I near the parking lot.

I notice a high whining sound of tires traveling at high speed on the road. As I stop for one last look around, a dark-eyed junco heralds my return.

I get into my vehicle. It is warm in the cab.

This snow will not last long I muse to myself as I pull out into traffic.