I was driving my bus past Cadillac and Dorr mountains the other afternoon, glancing up their slopes as I usually do, trying to pick out where certain trails were.
When suddenly I had this terrible pang, longing or whatever to be on one of those or almost any trail. In my imagination, I could see a moss-covered rock or two, a step up, and lots of trees. The woods were quiet, and I was happy -- really happy.
Trails have always been my heart's first love from the time I was a little guy in a Pennsylvania suburban woods to now. Only now, trails have dropped to number two place since Dolores claimed number one spot back around 1993.
But trails are it. A mountaintop, alongside a spring or lake or even the ocean, in a deep, still woods, through an open field. Trails are it.
I have spring fever. With me it becomes trail fever.
Dolores and I are about to sign up to help maintain a trail on Hogback Mountain, which was built by the Gorges River Land Trust. Can't wait. Several years ago I cleared some 60 blowdowns from the trails of Birdsacre, the wildlife sanctuary in Ellsworth. In South Paris, I maintained a series of walking/riding trails for the town. I belonged to the South Paris Conservation Commission. I used to maintain as section of the Appalachian Trail on Moody Mountain, and now I am a corridor monitor along another AT section.
When I taught school in Thorndike, I used to drive past Frye Mountain, which is across Walker Ridge Road from Hogback. I would drive to the foot of an old fire road and walk up it to the fire tower. Recently, after trying in vain to find the fire tower, the Maine Forest Service told me the tower had been removed some 20 years ago. Guess I've lost touch.
But that love of trails, which has led to my bout of spring trail fever, has never gone.
A therapist while trying to teach me to relax had me close my eyes and picture a pleasant scene -- any pleasant scene. I found myself alongside a trail in Acadia National Park. The trail follows alongside a brook that bubbles along between rocks, roots and logs, and meandering banks. Something about those rocks, roots and logs, and meandering banks with the rippling brook caught my emotional attention years ago.
It was peaceful with the sunlight dappling down through the spruce and pines. Downright peaceful, and that peace filled me -- and still does when I envision that trail.
Maybe it's the peace, the tranquility, that draws me to these paths.
I used to climb the old Appalachian Trail that climbed Old Speck Mountain in western Maine via the old firewarden's trail. The side trail from about halfway up drew me. There was a spot, where I could sit, lean back against a rock, and stare straight ahead out to Baldpate or out and down to Route 26. It was open and quiet. It was one of those places that never leave you.
Maybe it's the openness, the wide-open space out, above, and below.
But what about Baldpate. For years, when I thought back on a previous trip up that mountain, I saw in my imagination a steep slope, nearly a cliff, up which the AT climbed from the west. On the next real hike there, I found no such cliff, only gently sloping slab rock between the East and West Peaks. But it was an exciting climb, up through the woods, ending on that wind-blown open summit. One day a gust blew my slouch hat from my head, and I luckily caught it before it took flight off the southwest side of the summit.
No peace there, but a kind of wind-blown freedom. Maybe it's the freedom.
The climb down Jordan Cliffs from Penobscot Mountain? Too exciting. I found myself one spring, carrying my sweater and camera -- my typical sole attempt at supplies on the short trails of Acadia National Park -- standing on an angled rock, my right hand resting on another angled rock above the narrow trail. The open cliff was below and ahead. I pictured dropping the camera and hearing it bang around until it landed somewhere far below, never to be seen again. Next I imagined the sweater floating down and away, slowly, disappearing somewhere below.
Too exciting. Didn't like that trail. It's not excitement that draws me.
I love mountain summits. I don't love steep, open trails to get there.
As I get more advanced in my lengthening years of being 29.5, I find myself craving the peace of the trails and the woods as well as the open spaces of the summits.
Wildlife is part of the mix, the moose who wouldn't get off the trail in front of me, the doe who "talked to me" as I walked along a nearby path, the partridge that pecked at my boot tops as I took photos of the Beehive, and so many more that I can't even recall them.
Sharing the trails with woods critters is a major part of what draws me.
Sometime in the past five years, I developed an air allergy. With that, if you breathe, you experience and awful thing called postnasal drip which makes you clear your throat a lot. A nose, throat, and ear specialist told me it was air. He had no suggestions except for hard-core medicines.
I don't do hard-core medicines.
My general practitioner told me there was one permanent cure, but he didn't suggest it because it would also cure the problem of living beyond 29.5.
But I've discovered when I get on a trail into the woods, within 100 yards the symptoms disappear. Apparently the allergy is from air pollution, such as the kind that come from America's love affair with SUVs and heavy equipment.
Maybe what draws to the trails me are the peace, tranquility, open space with distant views, the freedom, sharing it all with wild critters, and being able to breathe -- being able to breathe is definitely a plus.
Spring fever? I see in my imagination that moss-covered rock along that babbling brook with the trees, shrubbery, and the sounds of critters such as songbirds.
There is no cold there. There is no snow. There is no ice. I'm not up at 4 a.m. to drive a bus on awful roads.
I'm there in the spring, and it's peaceful, and warm, and nothing is there to bother me.
I think it's called spring trail fever. Whatever it's called, I've got it.
As soon as the weather permits, Dolores and I are headed over to the Frye Mountain area to take a look at the Hogback Trail on the mountain of that same name.
We'll be putting the cure to spring trail fever into action -- getting out there.
Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com
Milton M. Gross Copyright 2010
Milt Gross' Column at Magic City
