Wisdom in the Familiar
By Angie Robinson
It was a cold, drizzly November day as we hiked to the summit of a new trail, just me and my friend. There was supposed to be a view at the top, but it wasn’t looking like we would get much of one that day as we climbed higher into fog that was so thick we could barely see the trail marker sign right beside us.
We made the decision to stop at some logs arranged around a long-ago fire pit and cracked open the thermos I’d hauled to the top with warm spirits to toast my friend’s birthday. Unsure if we had reached the top with the dense fog all around us and growing colder by the minute, we turned and headed back to the trailhead with our spirit-warmed bellies, happy we’d ventured out on such a dreary day.
The second time, I visited the trail, it was a bluebird day, and I had brought my husband and two dogs with me. Not knowing what to expect, we traveled along the same trail but with the sun shining on our backs and the smells of early spring in the air.
This time, we stopped at the spring midway to let the dogs get a drink, and we climbed from there to the summit. Once we arrived, I realized that my friend and I, just months before, didn’t actually reach the summit and were just about 100 steps from where it opened into an Appalachian mountain bald with views in almost every direction. I was struck with awe over the beauty that was so hidden in that former hike.
This has quickly become my trail.
I’ve learned that there is beauty in having my own trail. A trail that has become so familiar that I see beyond her path and explore all aspects of the forest. The more I hike the trail, the more I notice the rolling undulation of her mountainside, how her trees are in a perfectly imperfect alignment, and the little flowers that pop up at different times of the year along the edges of her path.
Visiting my trail in every season means I know that one month when the trillium are popping and the other time when the leaves are at their fall peak or when she affords miles of views from her summit in the winter. It’s exploring with hesitancy two months after a catastrophic hurricane hit and finding joy that for the most part, she was left mostly unscathed. Her trees upright and strong with just a few overturned elders scattered throughout the forest.
Obviously, my trail is not mine alone, but it is a special place. It holds memories for me, like my first two visits there but also times I’ve shared it with other special people in my life. There was the time my stepmom was visiting me from Durango and I took her there, only for us both to be blown away by the sheer number of wildflowers along the forest floor. We couldn’t stop pausing to look at each one and saying “Ooh, and look at that one!” And then, on that same hike when we got to the top to sit at the summit for a rest, only to look down and notice there were ticks all over our packs and ankles – needless to say we quickly packed up and headed back down (after cleaning off all the ticks, of course).
More often than not though, it is just my trail and me with my two canine companions. On those hikes, I often stop and take in the vastness of her woods, I breathe in the smells marking each season – fresh green warmth in the summer and decay and dampness in the fall. She helps me see that these mountains are as much a part of me as I am of them. As a native of Appalachia, these mountains raised me and although this isn’t the trail I played on as a kid, it has become my playground as an adult, exploring and studying nature just like I did some 40-odd years ago in the woods behind my childhood home.
As we enter another spring after a particularly cold winter, I’ve already been out to visit my trail. The green is slowly seeping back into her forest floor, and I look forward to seeing what she has to share with me this year. Perhaps I’ll spot a new wildflower or bird or maybe it will just be reveling in the simple joy of watching the dogs splash in the pool of water when we stop at the spring on the way up.