Hiking through the wilderness offers a welcome respite from the daily bombardment of information and stimulation, at least temporarily. I try to hike every weekend, typically 2 ½ hours every Saturday and Sunday. The solitude and quiet is such a pleasant change and it’s nice to be away for those couple of hours from doing anything but hike.
With the advent of winter and recent snows in this area, the views afforded in the woods are of course, wonderful. However, one of the things that I notice this year in particular is the color that surrounds me, or more accurately, the lack of color. It is akin to being in a monochromatic world of black and white. I am reminded of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, where she begins in a world of black and white, then enters color.
The white snow far outweighs any other color, blanketing the visual space that surrounds me. Furthermore, with the winter solstice approaching, little to no color exists amongst the vegetation, with exception to the brown leaves that hang gingerly onto their branches, awaiting the next wind that might blow them to their final destination to join the ranks of the ground’s fertile covering.
In such a space of primarily white snow, the most noticeable hue is the dark, almost black-like color of the tree trunks. In contrast to the white snow, the trunks appear exceptionally dark. As I hike, the world appears black and white, in stark contrast to what the woods look like during the other three seasons.
I wonder why it is that the human tendency is to take things for granted. The burst of color that seems to explode when I happen upon a grove of maple trees that stubbornly hold onto their dry, brown leaves can be a wonderment to behold when I am specifically looking for color in the quiet wintery world that is otherwise black and white. If I am not being mindful, those brown colors remain anonymous and unnoticed. And it should be noted that a wintery world seemingly devoid of color is exceptional in its beauty as well.
The most startling color, however, is the unexpected red. As I hike, it is not uncommon to come across blood in the snow. Both yesterday and today, I saw drips of blood along the trail that are inevitably surrounded by deer hoof marks in the snow. The snow makes things interesting, as there is a visual record of what has occurred, although it’s very difficult to decipher by my untrained eye. Nevertheless, I try, and like to pretend that I’m some sort of badass tracker or something.
Early in today’s hike, I took many trails that no other person had been on despite the nearly weeklong snow that has been on the ground. It’s always fun to be the first to hike a certain area over virgin snow, and I can’t help but take some unnecessary pride in knowing about certain trails that not many others traverse and being number one for once. I mean, I gotta be number one in something once in a while, don’t I? There’s generally deer and coyote prints wherever I go, but the snow is still very much pristine besides some dirt that’s been tossed up, presumably by deer digging beneath the snow for something to eat such as acorns. I’m just guessing that’s why there’s dirt that breaks the otherwise white pathway.
Anyway, I like the snow because it leaves a record of what has occurred in recent times. This particular trail ended up revealing a hotspot for deer to chillax through the evening and bed down for the night. There were several melted areas of snow that exposed the brown leaves beneath, each area an oblong shape about three to four feet long. The deer all seemed to be facing the same general direction, overlooking a valley from a flat, tree-covered hilltop.
As I proceeded to hike, I ended up hiking away from the trails, and along a side of a, shall I say “hill” as the term “mountain” is a bit too exaggerated. A substantial hill, mind you, but I don’t think I could say that I was hiking through mountains. I was following a deer trail or “deer run”, where it is quite secluded and away from any of the trails. I noticed that one other person had also been back here, so I decided to follow his tracks. I assume that the tracks were made by a man, but of course, it could very well have been a woman. No other person had been back here since the snowfall.
Again, the wannabe expert tracker in me was all excited to follow this dude. For about a quarter mile to half a mile I was on him! “Where are you going?” I’d occasionally ask this mysterious person who had been through sometime in the past day. (This expert tracker would estimate it at 24 to 30-hours ago.) Then, unexpectedly, the tracks disappeared! What? I doubled back about 10-yards, and sure enough, there were his tracks facing the same direction I was going, and then they were gone! How is this possible? I began to think about what could have happened. How did the boot prints suddenly vanish, as though into thin air?
I had no explanation, especially since I retraced my steps even further back, and noticed no prints other than my own that would suggest that he had turned around and doubled back. He simply disappeared.
I got to thinking and the only rational explanation was that he was a shape-shifter! He became a deer and must have carried his boots and clothes in his mouth or in his antlers! That was the only explanation that was remotely feasible. I wished I had superpowers to will the “Bloodhound Gang” to manifest, because this would have been a mystery that they would have solved.
As I decided to hike and follow the deer tracks instead, which were obviously the shape shifter’s tracks, I suddenly came upon an explosion of color! Blood! All over the white snow was a huge patch of defiled blood-soaked red! Oddly, very few tracks were around what looked just like an expanse of cherry-flavored snow cone. There was also no fur to be seen, nor any dragging of a body along the snow. Strange. Usually there’s at least hair and fur that is noticeable, but this time, I noticed none whatsoever. Clearly, some magical evil was involved! Where is that damned Bloodhound Gang? Man, they would love this mystery!
I continued to hike up the hill, wondering what might have happened just 27.36 hours ago, and got back onto the main trail. Lo and behold, once again I was on the shape-shifter’s tracks. He had switched back to being human, back to wearing his boots. I now knew that I was mistaken. No doubt, he had shifted into a coyote, not a deer, and he had himself quite the meal just a quarter mile down the hill. Actually, I will call it a mountain after all, to enhance this story a little bit. Yes, it was over yonder about a quarter-mile down the mountain, along the western face. And the wind was howling, indicative of the mountain spirits being angry, and there was an eerie silence that was broken only by the sudden chorus of crows high above in the trees, cackling about the morbid scene they witnessed yesterday of the shape-shifter consuming its prey. Good thing he wasn’t hungry by the time I came around today. He’s probably hibernating and chillaxin’ this afternoon in his shape-shifter cave hidden somewhere along the holler…
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