“I can’t take it anymore. Just leave me here.”
The tree stump we are looking at is what is left of an Eastern Hemlock tree which, because of disease, had to be cut down in 2008. The tree was 350 years old, standing at the time of the revolution, still shading travelers along this trail at the time of 9/11. There’s something comforting in that kind of longevity, of perseverance in one place (as if the tree had a choice).
We’re walking along a quite muddy, often rocky trail up the mountain, snow in our faces, through beautiful stands of red, yellow, orange, and gold maples, oaks, and spruce. The name of the trail is Devil’s Britches. Thus far the name means nothing. The trail is only moderately strenuous, and it is early. However, after my wife and daughter turn back (they were cold), we kept on and the incline grew, and grew, and grew. It was nearly four miles of up, always waiting for down. It’s really not true that “what goes up must come down,” at least not on Devil’s Britches. But it was fun, a reverie really, full of daydreams and talks about what we could do, maybe, ignoring for the moment some of the practical limitations life might impose. We never get to do this at home. Everyone should have time to dream, to let the mind roam wild, so we did our dreaming.
At the same time, it’s bitter cold and wet, and we laugh about how hard it is, all this uphill. I realize how few and far between these times of one-on-one times there are, with no distractions, and I relish the fact that we have this time. We have no cell phone service. No internet. No sounds other than that of our own voices and the soft platter of the snowfall. We did not pass another soul for four miles. I think we both loved it. And we don’t know why it’s called Devil’s Britches.
