Yesterday morning, even though the temperature was just
above freezing and there was a heavy dusting of snow, I set off on a hike
through the forest at the end of my street.
There’s a trail there, and a gate, for which I can thank some
enterprising neighbors. I’ve hiked this
trail often.
All
summer I was here, sometimes hiking, sometimes running. There’s a web of trails and it’s possible to go
quite a long way. I spent most of my
time in those warm months, though, on a loop trail that goes up to a saddle
(from where, on a clear day, you can see all the way to the San Francisco
Peaks) and continues above a small valley, then heads steeply south, crossing a
usually dry creek twice before heading back uphill and connecting with itself. It’s a nice trail through piñon and juniper, manzanita and scrub oak,
and it’s rare to encounter anyone else on the three-mile loop, except perhaps one
of my neighbors.
This morning, though, I was in a
bad mood because of some distressing news.
It’s been cold here and I’ve had a touch of cabin fever this winter
break, as storm after storm has moved across northern Arizona. I knew that a key to my feeling better would
be to get outdoors, in spite of the weather, or maybe because of it. I wanted to be alone, not to have to bother
making nice conversation with anyone. And so I was a little disappointed to notice
footprints in the snow - one of my neighbors, perhaps, already heading out on
the trail. The prints only led in one
direction, so I knew that he was still out there. I wondered and worried a bit that we’d each
infringe upon the other’s solitude. At
any rate, I followed these footprints through the gate, through the night’s
snowfall. Here and there other tracks -
rabbit, deer, maybe skunk - crossed or briefly followed the trail. It was so quiet, the way it only is when snow
muffles all.
When I arrived at the first
junction, where the trail heads south, I paused. My neighbor’s prints followed my usual
route. I scanned that trail but couldn’t
see any other sign of someone on that path.
Straight ahead of me, to the west, another trail stretched far, covered
in a thin layer of snow unmarred and pristine.
A voice beckoned, “Go further,” and so I did, lines of Frost tumbling in
my mind. I reached another gate, and
still the voice urged me to go on. I
rattled the slightly frozen latch and opened it, crested another saddle and
felt my breath catch as I caught a glimpse of the view to the northwest. Granite Mountain was shrouded in heavy grey
clouds and snow. Briefly the clouds
lifted, and then a shaft of light broke through and lit up an area at the base
of the mountain. It is a beautiful
mountain, even under the most ordinary of circumstances. But on that morning, with the light striking
it just so, with the clouds surrounding it, the mountain was
extraordinary.
I hiked on a while before turning
back, having found the peace and solitude I was seeking, along with something
else that I couldn’t quite name. In some
places the snow had melted on the trail, obliterating my neighbor’s footprints
and my own. I thought of how, if I’d waited
until later, I wouldn’t have seen the other set of footprints, and I wouldn’t
have ventured down the other path. I
wouldn’t have even known that I’d missed something unmistakably significant in
the reward of going further, down the path less traveled. And I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a
message there for me, on the last day of the old year, about what rewards might
be revealed in the new year, simply by going further.