A walk in the woods: Old Loggers Path

I was out backpacking this past weekend to seek a break from civilization. A walk in the woods in late autumn will not be colorful, but I was looking for some crisp atmosphere obtained from freezing air – it should make my messy thoughts sink and my mind regain transparency.

The Old Loggers Path (OLP) was where the meditation took place. OLP is a 27-mile long loop, and its terrain is generally mild with some sections of short and almost challenging ascents and descents. Thoughts have chances to drift away and re-organize; legs have chances to train for strength and stamina.

It was autumn and winter was just nearby. Trees were bald, and leaves were stacked high on the ground. The rain clouds were heavy but looked far away; the sun was shy but it remembered to spray spirit upon the land once a while. The trail was lonely – we hardly saw another being other than our group. The trail was deadly quiet, every step on the dried fragile leaves sounded like thunder.

The first night the temperature dropped below zero, and as well dropped out of my expectation. With the constant shivering, I was almost sure that the stars blinked at me and tried really hard to deliver me heat but failed. I stared at them to show my appreciation until I couldn’t sustain the cold and crawled into my sleeping bag; the moonlight penetrated the tent as if I lighted up a lantern inside. It was still chilly though. I was on and off the whole night accompanied by lots of dreams.

I buried myself deep in the sleeping bag when I was sleeping, and the air I breathed out condensed and dampened the opening of my bag, but the worse part resulting from my odd sleeping pattern was that I got up too late because I couldn’t see the sun light. And I had to shake ice off the rain fly, and my water filter malfunctioned, and the blisters on my heels devastated. What an awesome beginning that was?!

The route of the second day was also a blessing. Ups and downs greeted to us more passionately, and the target length was longer. I kept thinking that I wanted to be beamed to the campsite, or create a LittlePo maneuver to glide to the end point. None of the ideas worked but daydreaming at least eliminated some stress. We were chased by the curtain of nightfall and were forced to camp about 1 mile from the target campsite. We got a warmer night as compensation. I slept well with equal number of dreams.

The next day, I couldn’t wait to check the place we were supposed to camp. Over there, two streams intersect and generate several mini waterfalls. A pool was formed at the bottom, which seemed like a nice play area for summer time. Larger-scale waterfalls waited to surprise me along the way before the trail turned away from the creek.

A couple hours after noon, we were out of the trail. For the whole trip, we only confronted two other backpackers. The next person we talked to was a server in a restaurant on our way home. “Can I get you something to drink first?” The voice dragged me out from my pondering. Oh, yes, we were back to civilization.