Pathway's End

After speaking with our friendly neighbor on our last day camping I learned of a beaver pond accessible from our campsite. The name of our site, Sunny Landing, perplexed us for days as we could not untease the use of the term "landing" for a site completely untouched by water. But the discovery of the beaver pond cleared the way for a logical etymology of our place in the woods.

Walking through the small meadow adjacent to our tent site, where the sun filtered through young-growth trees to offer warmth on the cooler mountain days, I trampled on over to the path now over grown in the far corner. Following the pathway, now becoming less covered with high grass and discarded tree branches to reveal the sandy bottom underneath, I made my way to what I thought to a clearing at its end. Slowly, the sound of multiple bullfrogs began to reach my ears and then, I arrived at my destination, a magnificently large beaver pond, half marsh and half freshwater. Once stately trees broke up the stillness of the pond surface, now drowned to become lonely yet still majestic stumps.

Up until this point the only beavers I had come across were in our own "beaver pond" known as Paradise Pond at Smith College. Beavers have always been a favorite animal of mine, no pun intended, perhaps starting in the zoo scene in Lady and the Tramp. In any event, no beavers were to be had at my morning visit that day in July, but the stillness and discovery still registered a warmth that I look forward to finding again on our journeys. Walking down a path in the woods, to its end, and discovering where it leads, albeit Frost-ean, is an extraordinary happening.