Low Water

Plants are parched. Streams are struggling. Some might say it's time to water. I say ... it's time to cross a creek on stepping stones.

I was thinking of a stretch of the Cross County Trail close to my house (though not close enough to walk to, of course), which has thwarted me before because of an almost submerged stone crossing. 

Yesterday the water level was low enough to make the crossing easy. And that single detail opened up a world of forest and creek and pasture. Plus one of my favorite sections of the trail, which skirts a bamboo-fringed pond.

Just as low tide reveals a wealth of sea life, shells and sand dollars, low water offers up paths for trekking, vistas for gazing. In other words, possibilities.

Almost Equinoctical Evening

A late walk yesterday, after I finished a class assignment. I drove to a favorite Reston trail itching to move through space after a computer-centric day. 

The path did not disappoint. There were the familiar markers of fern and stream and swamp. There were the dog walkers and stroller pushers and trail talkers, those who first appear at to be muttering to themselves but are revealed upon passing to be wearing those distinctive white ear pods.

The second leg of this walk is a segment of  the Cross County Trail, with its dips and valleys, already crunchy with brown leaves and blowsy with stilt grass gone to seed — but beautiful in its roughness. Laser-pointers of light struck the thin trunks of the understory.

Scampering through the lambent air in the almost-equinoctial evening was an excellent way to end the day. 

Turning Back

A hike yesterday on less familiar ground, light slanting low from the late-afternoon sun. Only a short way down the trail came a fast-moving stream and what was billed as a "rock crossing" on the map but which was in fact a few slick stepping stones spread far apart and barely peaking their razor-thin edges above the rushing water. 

The first few stones of the crossing looked treacherous but feasible. If they weren't so moss-slicked I could see getting across them. But then I'd be in the middle of the creek, and, from what I could tell, stranded. I could see only the barest, thinnest edges to the mostly submerged rest of the stone crossing. 

Feeling distinctly wimpy, I turned back. I don't like turning back; it goes against my nature. So I found a side path to explore. It followed the stream for a few minutes, close enough to glimpse an ancient roadbed (see above), which seemed part of an old watercourse. 

I felt better, realizing that waterworks would have remained hidden had we taken the original crossing. And this morning, reading a description of this section of the Cross-County Trail, I felt even better about turning back. 

It describes a "stone crossing that is only usable during the low to normal stages of the creek." The gurgling of the stream, its breadth and raucous rippling, made it clear that the creek was at a high stage creek, not low to normal.  

Perhaps I wasn't as cowardly as I originally thought. Only prudent, even a bit adventurous. Ah, that's better. 

Long Woods Walk

Yesterday, I went out early for the weekly groceries, donned mask and gloves, observed social distancing, came home and wiped everything off before putting it all away and then decided ...  I needed a walk. And not just any walk — but a long woods walk.

I took a Reston path that leads to the Cross County Trail. It's a section of the CCT that I often stroll, but yesterday I went further, into a place where the first sign you see warns you of snakes in the area.

It's a fitting intro to a wilder, more hike-like area. It was easy to imagine I was miles away not just from desk and to-dos — but also from the section of trail I just covered.

I nodded to a father and two sons jogging down the trail; to a man and his children who were exploring ants on a log; and to several others out enjoying the sun and pretending this was an ordinary spring Friday.

The music in my ears seemed redundant, so I pulled out the buds and listened to woodpeckers and robins. I stopped on a bridge over the Snakeden Branch Stream and heard the water talk to itself. How lovely and clear it looked as it tumbled over rocks, all white and frothy as it landed.

It was almost two hours later when I got back to the car. The walk had turned into a hike. The day seemed larger and brighter than it had before.

Frosted Fields

An early walk on a Reston trail, one of my favorites. This is a paved path that winds between backyards and parkland before connecting with the Cross-County Trail. It's cool and enticing in the summer because of the tall oaks that shade it — and no less lovely in the winter.

It was a quiet amble —  not a soul about — and the stillness rang in my ears. Birds fluttered in the hedges, and the stream, normally gurgling, was quiet in the cold. It was chilly, so I walked fast from the get-go, flipping up the hood on my parka and balling up my fists inside old gloves.

But three quarters of the way down on the left, I had to stop. The wetland landscape there was transformed by frost. Matted grasses gleamed with white and broken tree trunks loomed above them. There was thin ice where the creek water ponds and a monochromatic beauty throughout.

Beauty is always welcome, but never more than when it is unexpected.

Staying on Track

Yesterday, a return to a favorite hike, the Cross County Trail between Colvin Run Mill and Georgetown Pike. The path was busy with mountain bikers, runners, families with grandparents and kids — including one grandpa who stepped off the fair-weather crossing into this stream.

He righted himself quickly and kept on walking. That's the spirit: staying on track!

I hope I do that when I'm a grandparent (which, with a married daughter and son-in-law, may not be too far in my future). The key with the hiking and the crossing is the keeping-on part.

Yesterday made it easy: a springlike day that made an unexpected step in the creek not the worst thing in the world.

Trail's End

I found it sooner than I thought, the southern terminus of the Cross County Trail. Found it and savored it, this beautiful spot along the Occoquan, a place where water meets land. The southern tip of Fairfax County.

I've followed the trail more than 40 miles, from the falls of the Potomac along Difficult Run to these placid waters. It was a long walk, a walk of many segments, and now that I've completed it all I can think of is how I'll do it next time.

It's a good thing to feel at the end a journey: the urge to begin again.

The Foxes

We were in a stand off, the fox and I. He had darted out from a small stand of trees in the neighbor's yard, angling to cross the street and enter the woods beyond. I was in his way.

For a few seconds we took each others measure. I saw a sleek animal with perky ears and a bushy tail. He saw a long-legged creature with wires coming out of her ears. Neither of us was going anywhere.

I thought about my initial few fox sightings in this neighborhood, maybe half a dozen in the first 10 years. Now I spot a fox every few weeks. And last month, on one of the first warm days of spring, I saw a den of baby foxes a few feet off the Cross County Trail. They were sunning themselves on a rock, clambering over a tree trunk and batting at each other in a most fetching way.

Will foxes soon be as common as deer?  I hope not. I hope they stay elusive and cunning, playful and bold.  I hope they stay wild — for at least a little while longer.

(The baby foxes are in the center of this photo; you have to zoom in.)

Land Between Fences

I still have wrapping to do, cooking and baking, too. Yesterday's rainy walk was a calm oasis amidst the holiday to-dos.

At one point I found myself walking along a fencerow. To my right, a golf course. To my left, a tangle of trees and brush. It was only halfway down the path that I realized there was a fence on my left, as well.

So this was a double fencerow, the land between fences, uncultivated, unclaimed. Except ... it has been put to the best of uses. It leads from the eddies and ripples of Little Difficult Run to the sleek office parks of Blake Lane and Waples Mill Road, and from there (I now know from experience) to lakes and dams and ridges.

It's a trail, a passageway. It takes us from one place, one reality, to another. And it looks very inviting here, I think — in a Thomas Hardyesque way!

The Sound of Rain

I began in a light rain, parking the car at a gravel turnout and approximating where I left off on this section of the trail a couple months ago. Not the best weather for walking, but I had two hoods, one on my sweatshirt and the other on my down jacket. Together, they kept most of me dry so that only my shoes and jacket took a hit.

The thing about hiking in the rain — in any weather, really — is that the weather becomes part of the walk. In this case, the splatter and the damp made their way into the setting. There was mud, of course, and lots of it. In a couple of low-lying spots someone had thoughtfully laid long two-by-fours as makeshift bridges through the muck. 

And there was the acoustic aspect, the splash of drops on leaves — fat drops that seemed more solid than liquid (and afterward, on the radio, I heard we were expecting freezing rain).  This was my accompaniment on today's stroll. A quiet world, just the sound of rain hitting earth.

Legacy Trail

In Lexington this weekend I was in mild trail withdrawal. For a couple of years I'd noticed what appeared to be a paved path running along Newtown Pike, my way out of town. And every time I'd notice it, too late to explore, I'd tell myself, next time.

This time was next time, so I did a little Googling, figured out approximately where it began, and stumbled upon the Northside YMCA trailhead by a happy accident. This is no cross-county trail. It's 12 miles, not 40, and it has a self-consciousness that the Fairfax County trail lacks.

But it did what all good trails do: It took me out of the here and now, plunked me down into some other realm where roads are crossed at odd angles and places I normally zoom by are viewed slowly and in great detail.

It was sunny when I started, but I walked so far that it was almost dark by the time I got back to my car. The lights of Lexington blinked in the distance. I was in my hometown but I was not. I was in some other place, on a trail.

Lost and Found

The Cross-County Trail is marked clearly in some stretches — but in others it takes detective skills and young, sharp eyes to see the distinctive CCT logo. Suzanne went hiking with me over the weekend and spotted such a small sign. The path was slender and led through an opening in some hedges. If she hadn't seen it I'd still be walking up and down Rolling Road.

But late yesterday afternoon, when I was hiking alone, I missed a marker and jogged far along the Fairfax County Parkway path before realizing that I'd zoomed right past the trail. It was leading me not down the Parkway but right across it. I've forded a lot of creeks on the trail but I refused to cross one of the busiest roads in the area at rush hour.

So I ran back to my car, got lost figuring out which way to drive on the Parkway (that would be north, not south) and finally, finally found the trail. It was worth the wait.

Suburban Density

Each time I’ve visited Lake Accotink Dam (which is only twice but feels like more), I’ve spotted people exercising here, running up the stairs beside the spillway, and, most recently, a man rolling back and forth on the asphalt stretching his quads and hamstrings, totally oblivious to the others walking here. I practically had to step over him on the trail. 

I think about how, even though I'm not in a city but in the suburbs, there is still the trademark of city life: an obliviousness to the lives of those around us. A resolute self-centeredness (or is it self-preservation?) that is perhaps bred in the general irritation engendered by close proximity to neighbors. 

Which is why I’m not sure this urban density thing will work in the suburbs. Clump people together, save space for hiking and boating and picnicking.  A lovely concept, until you have to step over a grown man stretching.

To what extent do we need our suburban space? Haven't many of us moved here to have it?

November Reds

I could tell with eyes half open that it was November. It was morning but not bright. Changing leaves are the brightest thing in the landscape. We must enjoy them and shuffle through them now.

Already some trees are skeletons, pale gray and shimmery.

The reds, when you see them, stand out like beacons.

Trail Thoughts

Yesterday's trail hike took me from Lake Accotink to Byron Avenue Park, almost to Old Keene Mill Road. This is true terra incognita. I could as easily be in Maryland or Delaware or Pennsylvania as Fairfax County.

The trail has its own rites and its own rhythms. It mesmerizes. There is the creek gurgling in the distance, the sound of a distant mower, a faint cricket chirp. My feet rustle through the leaves. I pass a few people, not many on a Monday. A gaggle of school children, a couple of lone mountain bikers, exercisers sprinting up the stairs near the dam.

But for the most part, I'm alone, notebook in hand, writing down the thoughts when they surface. Because out on the trail, they always do.

Back Home and Walking

Suzanne was out the door yesterday morning before sunrise, running down a paved road first and then, with first light, ducking into the woods and the old trails she knows so well. At midday she  took Copper for a walk, and, in the late afternoon, she, Claire and I drove to a southern stretch of the Cross-County trail and strolled it together.

I didn't think of this in the countdown days before Suzanne arrived, but now that she's here it seems perfectly natural. When you return home after a long absence your feet seek firm ground. Walking becomes a way to reacquaint yourself, to re-enter the landscape.

Walking does this for me, of course; it's a way to ground myself and put life in perspective. But it's nice to see my children walking, too. All three girls run or walk —they move through the world to help the world make sense. I hope they always do.

(Suzanne and Claire on the Cross-County Trail.)

The Deer Hunter

I had seen warning signs like this one along the trail for months — "Archery Program in Process." But until last weekend I had never seen a deer hunter. He was decked out in camouflage and his face was smudged with paint. If he had been in a tree stand I would not have seen him.

But he was on a trail and I was, too. We passed each other, exchanged brief hellos. He held an elaborate bow, nothing like what I remember as a child. It was all metal and wires. It meant business. And he did, too. If I'd had more time to prepare myself I might have asked him to pose for a photo. But he was in a hurry and did not look happy. He was not dragging a six-point buck behind him.

I curse the deer that gobble up the daylilies and scrape the bark off the Kwanzan cherry. I think of them not as Bambi but as Super Rat. I wish they were gone — all but one or two I could spot across a sylvan glade once or twice a year.

But the idea of this guy up in a tree looking for movement, scanning the woods with his high-powered scope — well, frankly, it creeps me out. So I gave the deer hunter a wide berth — and I shivered as he passed.

Cutting My Losses

The walks I've been taking lately on the Cross-County Trail are not without their lessons, and one of the foremost is learning to recognize when I'm lost. The trail is well marked — most of the time — but on Saturday there was a stone crossing, a sudden turn and — voila! — I was in uncharted territory.

There was a path, of course, but there are many paths in the woods. Some are barely perceptible, the width of a deer (and given the skinny deer we have in Fairfax County, that's not very wide); others are broad but lead in the wrong direction. The latter is what I was dealing with Saturday. It could have been the Cross-County Trail — except that it wasn't.

When I'd walked for a while without noticing the distinctive CCT marker, I turned around and retraced my steps. There was a trail that went off to the left, but it was rockier and less cleared than I was used to — probably a dead end. There was another possibility, but it looped back onto the path I was on. I walked all the way back to the steppingstones before I found my error — and it was a big one — turning the wrong direction after I crossed the creek.

Once righted I could immediately tell the difference. The path was sure and springy beneath my feet. I had cut my losses quickly. I was on my way.

How We Learn About Meadows

On Sunday's walk I passed an informational display telling me what a meadow is, why a meadow is important. How sad that we have to learn about meadows from a sign! How much better to learn about them from the burrs in your socks, the poison ivy on your ankles and the sunburn on your shoulders.

I grew up in savannah land — bald, barely treed land where meadows ruled. I learned to treasure the shady tree line around the edges of fields and the majesty of the lone burr oak. I learned first-hand  the loud racket of meadows — cicadas chanting, grasshoppers buzzing — but also the quiet heart at their center and how their beauty is best set off by the presence of a grazing cow or thoroughbred.

 But mostly, I learned my way around meadows by tramping through them, by looking out at them from fence rows, or by harvesting them, collecting goldenrod, Queen Anne's Lace and Joe Pye Weed. So when I came across this meadow sign on Sunday, I snapped a shot — but I made sure that there was a lot of meadow in the picture too.

One and Only

Yesterday I walked the Twin Branches Nature Trail, which is now part of the Cross-County trail. The last time I walked it there was huge earth-moving equipment deep in the woods and a new dam going in. I got hopelessly lost on the detour, was caught in a fierce summer thunderstorm and rescued by a homeowner who saw me shivering under a tree and invited me into his garage.

Sunday's adventure was much calmer — although there was a little excitement. Here's a sign I saw on my way into the woods. It was no problem heeding the warnings: Stay on the trail. Check. Do not overturn rocks or logs. Check again. Do not approach a copperhead. Check for sure on this one.

But my favorite part of the warning is this: [Copperheads] are Reston's only venomous snake. Whew! I feel much better now.