A Cold Hike at Potato Creek

~thebogboys

The fig water kefir I drank on the way here was cold, but it rested hot in my belly. I'm full of nervous energy, in the extremities of my limbs and in a tingly feeling on my tongue. I feel like I could do a long sprint right now, but I'm going to contain my energy because I know I have a long walk ahead of me. At the head of this trail is an old cemetery, and while I've never walked into it in all the years I've been coming to this park, I do like to stop and look at the names from the outside. There are so many colorful old names here, last names to have seem to have gone extinct. Fryar, Donathen, Lasch, Eisenmenger, Foldesi. There are a few old sycamores standing on the perimeter of the cemetery. The whole property couldn't be more than 3 acres. Right now I'm walking underneath an apple tree, though I'm not sure it's produced fruit in a long time. At the beginning of the trail, not more than 200 feet in, you're given the opportunity to go west or north, with the former taking you to a small pier that juts out into a lake. It's remarkable to consider that this large lake is man-made, part of a huge DNR project from the '70s. It's hard to imagine a project like that being good for the environment, just creating a giant lake in the middle of a forest that wasn't there before, but the biodiversity around this feature is incredible, and some of the waterfowl I've seen here implies that there has to be some great benefits a place like this that is not perturbed by motorized boats. There's a strong headwind that is pushing me to get away from the exposure of the pier, but before I leave I have to look at the shoreline and see the gentle progression of duckweed into foam. Looking out far enough I can also see some small weeds reaching out across the water, covered in icicles.

That nervous energy is converting into a strong, shivering cold feeling. This is the first time I've really been outside in cold weather for at least 8 months. We had such a miserable, wet, temperate winter last year that I barely had the opportunity to walk like this. It's a bit uncomfortable right now but I know the feeling will pass. I'm back on the main trail heading north. The ground is covered in dead honeysuckle leaves, white oak, northern red oak, and something unidentifiable that looks like it's in the birch family. The forest shifts over time, starting as deciduous, then opening up to allow for sumac trees then to mulberries and finally back to deciduous again. Walking up a small hill takes me into the forest proper. Lots of very tall and old trees here, mostly oaks. There's a good diversity of oak species here. The ravages of honeysuckle aren't nearly as bad either. At this time of year it's pretty easy to find honeysuckles because they tend to be the last plants in our forests that still have green foliage. There's a beech sapling, holding all of its browned leaves until the spring time when it's ready to push out new ones. There's a bristly greenbrier, still somehow a little bit green. There's the unwelcome message of an autumn olive, with its undeniably beautiful green and white leaves contrasting against the brown and gray of my surroundings. There's a desiccated small pile of chinkapin oak leaves clutched to a branch.

I'm starting to come more aware of the clothing I'm wearing. Not like I wasn't aware that I was dressed, but more that the sensations of all the clothing I'm wearing are starting to become more present in my mind. I'm wearing alpaca wool, mittens and a hat. There's a soft scratchiness and weight to them that is almost sensual in a way. My heavy work boots are insulated and I feel like they're pulling me down and protecting me, like two large blankets. There's a small pond to the right, and every time I've ever passed it it's been completely covered in green algae, duckweed, milfoil, and watermeal, turning the entire surface dark green. Some striations of dark blue water cut through the surface, fossilized in place by the frost. I imagine a grey heron must have walked through here searching for things to eat. There's no sign of them anymore, but I am seeing some finches darting in and out of the dead foliage along the coast, zipping out and in and looking at me before they can be spotted, or so they think.

I turned left at the next fork, which, due to the natural curve in the path, and that takes me east. I'm about to encounter a small springhouse that was erected back when this land was inhabited by a farming family. There is also another pier here that looks north into a shallow bay of the lake. I'm reminded of a few years ago, on a summer's walk here when I saw many thousands of birds seemingly in some kind of territorial dispute, or perhaps some kind of harmonious dance that I just couldn't understand. I remembered seeing mallards and water ducks, at least two or three species of geese, white swans. I've also seen beautiful marsh marigolds growing right here on the coastline. My talking disturbed a pine squirrel, who seems to have constructed some kind of moss house deep in a bramble patch. It's a wonder that those small creatures are able to navigate that without cutting themselves up.

There's a bench next to the springhouse. "In Loving Memory of Alex Carson Guyse: If you pause to reflect, you will find time to count your blessings." One fall day in 2017 I first walked here and sat on that bench, pondering my life, wondering if I had any value to give to the world, or who would miss me if I died. I felt like I could count all my blessings on a single hand back then. It's comforting to look back at those times and see how much fortitude has been built up, the people who have come into my life.

I'm beginning to wonder if kefir has some kind of psychoactive properties. I'm feeling a sort of mental acuity that makes me feel hyper aware of my senses. As I'm slowly shifting forward on this path, the trunks of the trees feel like they're floating past me, I can look up and see the dead canopy being pushed around like waves in the ocean. You can't really hear the headwinds in the summertime, but in the winter you can feel the weight of them, it's like listening to the tradewinds. Every time I shift my focus to something closer or further away, the sensation isn't immediate but instead it's something that can be focused on, almost like the way that you see a focal point shift in a movie. That wind is really impressive, and I'm thankful to be deep in a forest that mostly protects me from it. I can't imagine how cold that air is. There's something existential about being protected by a bunch of dead things from something that could kill me. I feel a similar sensation to being inside drinking hot chocolate during a tumultuous blizzard. There's a drop off near me, north of the path, and inside of it is a wider flat area that is filled with dead brush, creamy white and tan and gray, looking in the distance like the entire ravine is filled with smoke.

I'm watching a downy woodpecker dance up and down a tree. I can hear another, larger woodpecker behind me, possibly pileated. I can hear some anonymous songbird, its song circling around me as it flies around. Just little tiny chit-chit noises. These sounds, the moaning creaks of the white pines ahead of me, and that omnipresent pressure of the high winds are the only sounds that accompany me today.

The forest shifts to coniferous, and with that everything becomes significantly quieter. Most of the branches are not at my height anymore, but instead jut out from their trees at 20 or 30 feet and above, still clothed in their needles. What needles have fallen from their trees blanket the floor of of this footpath, masking the sounds of my steps.. there are still some live plants on the ground, gingerly holding on, though the majority of them will be wiped out by the winter. Maidenhair fern, leaves of buttercup and violet, wide ponderous leaves of greenbrier. There is a fox squirrel about 20 feet to the north of me, wiry and fuzzy and fat. He peacefully carves into a walnut husk, seemingly unaware of my gaze. The fringe of his tail reminds me of the color of yellowy beef fat.

I finally made it to one of the cross trails, noted on the parks maps as "CT", this one cutting straight north and south through the entire park. I can see a runner approaching me from about a quarter mile away. I do enjoy running, but the idea of running through a forest almost seems disrespectful. I was considering taking the loop of trail 2 in the northeast corner of the park, but I decided to cut off into the forest along a deer path that hugs the titular Potato Creek. I just passed by a mature beech, and I'm reminded of being here last year with a friend of mine, both of us encountering the puzzling little creatures known as wooly beech aphids. They rained tiny particles of spit and who knows what else from the branches that they painted white with their crowded bodies. When one of us got too close, they'd raise the little paint brushes on their butts to the sky and wave them around menacingly. It was on that same hike when my friend told me one of her favorite plants is American hepatica, of which I just saw young sprouts. Their color is almost a medicinal green with purple mottling, and their club-shaped leaves are alluring.

There's a screaming tree about 100 feet east of me. Its creaks sound uncannily like those of a red fox. I'm tiptoeing down a fallen log covered in greyish bark, the forest floor chestnut-colored from the beech, red and black and chinkapin oak, sugar maple. Walking and staring at nothing, it's giving me a sensation like I'm on stimulants. Things shifting in and out of focus. Colors popping unnaturally. I can almost feel my vision, it's like the ground is the felt of a pool table, and the trunk is high-grit sandpaper.

Trees really make so many sounds in the wintertime. Beagle's lowing. Chair scooting across the kitchen floor. Crack of baseball-on-bat. Crow's caw. Rusty hinges. Barking creatures that are decidedly not canid. Plucked spring of a door stopper. Descending scale of a piccolo. Triumphant Screech of an osprey.

I decided to go back to the main trail, and now I'm on trail 2. There's an altar of spruce trees deadening the sounds of everything around me. Everything except for this strange electronic whining noise to the south that I've heard almost the entire time I've been here. Perhaps some kind of generator.

I made it to the bench where I took my first photo with my partner on a cold April day years ago. There's a duck blind here that for years frustrated and confused me until I learned of their value to bird watchers. There are nice familiar plants here: broadleaf dock, grapes, virgin's-bower, white avens. Tulip-poplar and cottonwood. There's an unfamiliar animal snuffling around in the brush under a stand of honeysuckle, randomly producing tiny trills that remind me of the tone of a woodblock.

Time to get back on the CT, south to the parking lot. Although this is technically a shortcut, I imagine it'll be at least a half hour before I'm back to my car. There's burning bush on this portion of the trail, an unfortunate invasive. It was making me think of a native plant in that genus, Euonymus atropurpureus. Wahoo tree. Wouldn't you believe it, there it is! What a wonderful surprise. It has these strange little x-shaped balloon seed pods, rosy pink on top and a deep fleshy red underneath. They hang nakedly from the dead tree. This is a wonderful find for me, as I don't see Wahoo trees very often, although they don't appear to be endangered. Another curious tree, I feel like I found some kind of crab apple. The fruit are glistening and plump, and they explode readily with a little bit of pressure. They're an almost ceramic yellow green color, maculated with little black spots. The black pit on the bottoms of the ovaries look like fingers.

This cold is really starting to settle into my bones. I'm quickening my pace. This is the first time I've been able to feel my face in two hours. Before I get back to the car, I chew on some rose hips. They aren't ripe until after first frost. If they're still solid and pastel colored, they're not ready, but the ones that are more translucent and blood-colored are good for eating. They're tart, very sweet, mildly resinous. They taste kind of like how red roses smell. They also have a bit of a chemically, fake sweet flavor to them, like a red Laffy Taffy.

The last thing I saw before I finished my hike was a tiny greyish pine squirrel perched on a log. It looked in all the world like a tiny stuffed animal, but while making the most obnoxious territorial calls. There was a partner in a neighboring tree, also chewing me out but with deeper, barking tones. They eventually flitted away and I completed my walk after two and a half hours, thoroughly cold but satisfied with my venture.