Winter is playing tug of war with Spring. The days: 40s, even 50 degrees one day this week. Nights: back down into the 20s. This give and take is mostly give as we step further and further into the new season. With the ice gone, I figured it would be a good time to go and visit the headwaters of Lost Creek, which I pictured to be swollen and easy to find in the woods now.
From my house, I access the trailhead that takes me to the uppermost reaches of Lost Creek by making one left turn, heading up Rt. 235 to the top of Shade Mountain. This “mountain,” a dwarf like every other hill in Pa, is the fractured remains of a whittled-down anticline, an oak forest shading its ridge top. At the lot, I follow the thin, dashed line on the state forest public use map in my hand, which is much too broad in scope, way too large in scale. It looks as if I don’t have to walk far from the parking lot to the creek crossing —a swift, cursive swish of the cartographer’s tool. Yet, I know this is an allusion but estimate that it’s still less than a mile.
As I start down the trail, I begin to realize my mistake in coming here. Of course, I have known for years that you don’t mountain bike after the early Spring thaw, but my sheltered life for the past 7 months have erased my memory. It seems as if the entire mountain is mud. My boots sink at least an inch into the earth with each step. I feel as if massive slabs of mountain are going to slough off in a muddy landslide as I descend a ravine. I wonder if I should turn back, knowing that I could get hurt at the worst, and at the least, I am putting undue stress on this trail. But I’m determined to find the origins of Lost Creek—my guide, the compass in the past year and a half as I’ve been trying to feel out the lay of the land of my new home.
But as I continue on, I realize my impact is the least of this trail’s worries. In banked switchbacks, deep ruts are cut into the mud, down past the disturbed roots of rhododendron, down to rocks that were the only thing holding the hillside together. And even some of those were kicked up and tossed aside. Apparently, this trail had been approved by the state for motorized vehicles like dirt bikes, and a few “locals” were out here “muddin’.”
Locals? Wait. What do I mean by that? Aren’t I myself now a local? Do I mean redneck? Hick? How can I when I too grew up in a rural landscape and claim to be the most comfortable in those “borderlands” where agriculture abuts silviculture. What makes me so different?
As I walk a little further, I find one thing that makes me a little different. Not better, not more intelligent, just different.
In an especially mucky section of trail, some of the motor heads have placed a series of hewn logs side by side to build a buried bridge in this “quickmud.” Not a particularly obtrusive addition to the woods, maybe rocks could have been a better, less obvious addition, but much more practical in supporting the weight of a dirt bike. Anyway, as I know my “neighbors” must have busted over this feat of environmental engineering, they heard only the firing and roar of their two-stroke engines. I, though, standing with feet balanced on the outmost logs of the bridge, hear the low gurgle of water. No stream runs above ground, but it sounds as if the gurgle is coming from uphill. I walk up the sludgy bed of mud, which now works its way between the cuff of my pants and the tongue of my boots. After, I don’t know, ten to twenty yards, I come upon a boulder-garden at a steeper section of the mountain. Still no water seen, but I can hear a louder chug of water, running underneath the ground. I climb up a few of the bigger rocks, and find just the smallest cupping of land—a bathtub basin, rimmed by rocks and lined with fermenting leaves.
I couldn’t see where the water came in, as the pool started somewhere under another cantilevered rock, and I couldn’t see where it left, as it dove under more stone. But I felt, here, I had found it. This was not the demarked beginning of Lost Creek, as I had only gone halfway to the official creek crossing on the map. And by no means did I believe that this was the only sweetwater spring that gave birth to the creek. Dozens of similar springs rose out of nothing but the intersection of the watertable with the exposed world. But I felt satisfied, as if this spring rose out of something more. That the convergence of water, rock, mud, and me somehow brought this trickling pool out of a deeper well, as if I struck the stone with my walking staff and caused the river to run.
Another day, I’ll find the “official” headwaters. Right now, I’ll go home and wash the mud from my own feet.
Pennsylvania mud is kind of an anomaly or unique experiences because it's not usually watery, but it manages to complete absorb your feet. It sucks you in really. I found one of these muddy abysses at the golf course. I hit a wayward shot and went it to a stream but that looked dry enough but was covered with leaves. I tested the leaves out and they seemed sturdy, enough but on my second step, my leg punched through and I felt that great sucking sensation of the earth trying to consume me. The harder I worked to escape it, the deeper I sank as if there were no bottom. I slid out of the straps of my golf bag and flung it out to my brother hoping it would make me more maneuverable, but long story short, my brother had to pull to a stump with my own golf club and then it took both of us working together to get me out of the sludge which had swallowed me up to the waist. I finished the round, but let's just saying that scoring was drastically hindered by all the mud I was toting around with me. I avoid that section of the woods now. It can keep my ball, but every so often I wander over and see if anyone else made the same blunder I did.
ReplyDeleteIt's been a muddy week it seems. I went for my first outdoor run since summer, and didn't realize that several inches of water in 24 hours would have caused the New River to flood the local park. The waters had receded, but left behind some deceptively deep mud on the paths.
ReplyDeleteThese entries are starting to take on a quest-mystery feel: Will Ruff Currents ever find the headwaters?? I'm very much enjoying the adventure!