I awake in darkness, as has become my habit during these days that are the darkest. The light within this darkness comes from the stars and moon, of course, and I have been enjoying the familiar shapes of constellations, which also makes me recall nights stargazing with Hans Rey. The the pattern of stars remain the same, at least during our life spans. Nights of star watching accumulate in a bin of memory, returning us to moments that differ in temperature or clarity of sky; a moon comes and goes, waxes and wanes; with planets gyrating, comets flashing and asteroids sparking. But these are minor compared to the familiarity of the shapes that spin around the pole star.
Even these familiar friends can succumb to a more complete darkness as the stars and all thing celestial are hidden by clouds. This morning the clouds have parted and the sky clear. The world has also frozen up. There is talk of snow. So it has been for a few days now with only occasional meandering flakes in sight. When light finally does come this morning there is a steady flurry, but it is still only a tease of winter: the ground is dusted white, but there is no accumulation beyond this thin cover that lets tufted grass through and barely graces selected branches. The longest night, the darkest day, is nearly here; still we wait for winter.
Despite the brevity of light and the pre-winter bite, these days are some of my favorites for exploring nearby forests and crags. I like to do this off-trail, though the meaning of trail becomes ambiguous as I head out: paradoxically, I almost always follow trails when I am off-trail. The woods are full of the tracks and traces of various creatures passing through — moose, beaver and mountain bikers being the most common hereabouts. Non-living (but animate) things also leave their mark, such as seasonal streams that dry out but leave a clear path to follow. Often there is a relationship between these kinds of trails made by geophysical or biological action: most trail tending gets down to grappling with the synergy of soil compaction from hiking or biking and the erosion that surely follows: we make new seasonal streams by walking. There are other unexpected combinations in trail making. The best of plans for a low-impact or nearly no-trace trail can be turned upside down by unintended “users.” Such was the case when I found that the most frequent travelers on the “winter-only wilderness route” I advocated for Lost Pass were moose who paid no attention to the season and mucked up the wettest parts of this traverse. Similarly, many trails that were built to be used only as ski or snowshoe trails are now frequented by mountain bikers. Grassy ways have become muddy pits.
Yesterday Siri and I began our tramp on what was designed as a backcountry ski trail, but is now primarily a mountain bike track. The ski trail is located on a deconstructed U.S. Forest Service logging road (all brook and drainage bridges were pulled) that itself is based on an older New Hampshire pioneer-era farm track: tracks upon trails upon roads upon tracks; our traces build on each other. What surprised me were the number of very defined beaver trails came off of this corridor. “Busy” doesn’t do justice to what must be feverish nocturnal activity. They also left behind plenty of spiky stumps that could impale a stumbling tramper.
Most of what I know of beavers comes from their signs — gnawed and felled trees, amazingly indestructible dams, domed beaver lodges, flooded terrain, scat, tracks, and finally their trails. Beavers are largely nocturnal, so seeing one is a rare treat. I usually spot beavers by the rippling water trails they leave behind as they swim, and am familiar with the warning slap of a tail reverberating from a pond surface. These sightings are rare, however.
Beaver trails emerge from ponds and travel through the wetlands around ponds. Since beavers often make shallow mucky areas as much as they engineer true ponds, these trails often take the form of networks of carved out troughs through wetlands that allow beavers to travel in a something between a waddle and a swim. When the trails emerge from these waterways onto relatively dry land, they maintain a gentle “u” shape. My guess is that beaver bellies slide across the ground and gradually compact the soil thereby molding this form. These meandering and interconnected paths lead to areas where beavers are doing the hard work of felling and processing trees into appropriately sized dimensions for dragging to a dam or lodge. However, beavers often tackle trees with circumferences that exceed what appears to be the standard 2-4 inch diameter for construction. Sometimes felling projects are abandoned and one will come across a 2-3 foot diameter trunk that is gnawed partway through. Trees are food as well, so perhaps this is snacking.
When I lived in Costa Rica I was impressed by the trails left by leaf cutter ants, though I critiqued their trail tending (I never saw a miniature waterbar, drainage ditch or soil retainer). Leaf cutter trails converge on massive nests that can be many feet in diameter and six feet high. The ants march constantly to and from these mounds on a mission to bring back vegetable matter to feed their underground fungus factories. Their trips back to their nest after cutting a bit if leaf to lug home collectively present a line of merrily bobbing green fragments grasped in the pinchers of rusty orange insects. Occasionally one will see a solider ant with a massive head (in comparison to his fellows) or a tiny rider scrambling on the traveling leaf fragment performing janitorial duties by inspecting and cleaning the leaf to make sure no errant mold or parasite is inadvertently brought into the nest.
Another ant trail that became familiar to be during my years in Cost Rica was the army ant march — I always questioned how these creatures sneaked into a country without a military. In the forest one would come across streaming black rivulets that branched and remerged as they flowed across the forest floor consuming all matter of insect or other creature that could not escape the merging and splitting mass that passed. Army ants regularly came through our home, which was on the edge of the forest. While being somewhat inconvenient — we had to avoid the main flow and reaching black tendrils that reached into the corners of our house — their visits were generally welcomed as a house cleaning service: scorpions and cockroaches were swept up, dismembered, carried away and consumed.
Trails represent movement, whether it is the deliberate movement of living things or the result of biogeophysical processes. Here it’s worth distinguishing between a living or active trail versus the mark left behind: a trail of army ants is different from a path littered with scorpion parts. A babbling brook is a sort of trail, but it is distinct from the dry bed of a seasonal stream. I am most concerned with the later sort, a trail as trace or mark. In the case of ants, urinating dogs and trail tenders slapping paint on trees and building cairns, marks can be deliberate signs that provide information to the observant passersby. Ants and dogs use scent, while more visually oriented humans prefer to see their cues. What is left behind can also be inadvertent, but equally important in providing information. While I cannot discern the odors left by my footsteps, Siri can. This fact caused a small trauma during one of our jaunts when on the return journey I diverged from the trail we had originally taken. Siri, nose to the ground and charging ahead, continued on the original trail while I on a whim decided to explore a spur trail. I noticed our divergence shortly after Siri did as a result of the terrified yelps of puppy separation anxiety. Fortunately, a quick whistle and Siri’s ability to backtrack and precisely retrace my most recent steps resolved the crisis.
My explorations these last few weeks have used another sense — touch — to read another inadvertent trace left behind on some trails: soil compaction. I have been mostly following the myriad of informal mountain bike trails that surround the Sandwich Mountain Farm. Since these trails are now covered with a fresh layer of autumn leaves, it is difficult to see them, but not too difficult for a seasoned trail tender to feel them: my feet can discern the difference between springy loam and hard-packed soil. Like leaf cutter ant trails, these trails lack drainage work, so in some sections they become small streams after a rain. This is a result of compaction as well: because it lacks the absorbency of springy loam, rainwater flows down the harder surface of the trail, even when it is hidden by a layer of newly fallen foliage. This can be witnessed in action, as the actual flow of water, or as a sign, leaves clumped and a hard surface revealed. Here we have a sort of conversation between biological beings and geobiophysical forces that are recorded on the landscape.
While most of these traces or marks are only visible (or smellable and touchable) up close, some can be seen by gazing from a mountain summit or peering at a Google Earth satellite image. Roads, which are a sort of trail, not only leave their own mark, but also are accessories to adjacent development that smatter the land with buildings and parking areas.
Unlike the nearby Interstate 93, the Sandwich Notch Road is barely visible in areal photos. Ground reconnoissance and forest forensics are required to see the signs of what was: 40 farms, 3 school houses, and inn and tavern, and four generations of families. Two remain with less than twenty cultivated acres. The skeletal remains of stone walls and cellar holes are most of what is left on the 8 miles of the Sandwich Notch Road. The barn on the Sandwich Mountain Farm is one building still standing, its hand-hewn Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) timber frame keeping its share of carbon sequestered, out of the cycle for a while.
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As I conclude writing Acteon Ridge and Sandwich Mountain are visible with light blue sky chalk dust clouds above. Sandwich is dusted as well and the craggy peaks, Jennings and Sachem, shine white. The world is very silent.