Forest Roads

After 3 hours of searching out the most comfortable and beautiful campsite possible, J and I came across a small dispersed campsite near Ripton, VT at the deadend of a tree-covered forest road. Forest roads are different from regular dirt roads in a couple ways: first off, they are less driven upon and often serve as pedestrian trails more often then vehicle runways; secondly they are hard to traverse by car, with large gaping holes in the dirt floor and steep shoulders down to rock encrusted rivers and creeks; thirdly they are hence the antithesis of anonymous, if you see a being on the road, whether human or animal, eye-contact most certainly is made and hands waved.

As our little slice of a forest road was on the side of a mountain (think our childhood fantasy My Side of the Mountain) clouds rolled by, both rain-bearing and innocent, often close enough to reach out and touch. The road was also the scene of evening walks after dinner to explore the woods together, afternoon drives up steep pathways, and morning expeditions to photograph and lose myself.

One of these mornings, our last morning camping, I met Nola, our neighbor, who we had seen other mornings walking her dogs with friends. She walked like an older farmer, perhaps from years of cross country runs, and had a warm smile with a melancholy tint. She told me of the changes seen in the forest over the years she has lived there, and explained of her feeling of the world pushing in on their little corner of wilderness. Escaping the tri-state area 20 or so years ago, she came to Vermont to find a simpler life and perhaps became, according to my own semi-touristic perspective, a steward of the forest life-ways. Fighting rifle ranges, logging, and the tossing of Budweiser cans, she doggedly keeps on with the important work one person can do to protect the small environmental oases we are lucky enough to visit. Shaking my hand, she invited us back and thanked us for being the kind of campers so welcome in the neighborhood. The friendliness of a stranger on the road put me on a natural high for hours.

You can easily get lost in the forest, each road looking a bit the same. J and I couldn't find our campsite our first morning there, after returning with supplies from town. But perhaps that isn't such a bad thing after all. For being off the map, you can trace your own swath of land and open your thoughts to creativity and purpose, free from the markings of media and "the grid."