Mountain Laurel

The mountain laurel was blooming, and I had to see it. I remember stumbling on it during the pandemic during a one-day getaway that was the most time I'd spent away from home in months.

Yesterday, well clear of lockdowns and one week further into June, the blossoms were heavy on their glossy green stems. Flowering shrubs lined one section of trail, making a passageway of poesies. 

Walking through it, I felt like those blossoms were blessing me, which I guess, in their own way, they were. 

Lovely, Dark and Deep

It's less than three weeks till summer solstice. By 5 a.m. the first birds are singing, and darkness doesn't fall till almost 9 p.m. At this time of year, light is our constant companion. 

Perhaps that's why the woods appeal. They are, to quote Robert Frost, "lovely, dark and deep." Though he described a winter landscape, mine is a summery one: oaks, maples and sycamore in full leaf, the path that winds through them sheltered and shady.

What mysteries lie down these trails? What refreshment will they bring? Will the woods be cooler than the street? These are questions I want to answer — and will. 

Woods Walking Track

Choosing a walking path for the day is a little like choosing an outfit, which means that a weather report may be involved. When showers are forecast, as they have been recently, it's good to pick a circular trail, because there will be less distance to sprint if caught in a downpour. 

I had just such a trail in mind the other day. It's one of my earliest strolling finds, a peach of a path that makes not just one circle but two. I take the larger loop if I have more time, the shorter one if I don't. When I'm dodging raindrops, I take as many loops as I can before the wind starts to whistle. 

It struck me the other day that it was almost like walking on a track, with its precise quarter-mile distance, so you know automatically, with your revolutions, how far you've gone. 

This "track" was not quite as round or as predictable — and I'm not entirely sure about the mileage. But I could find out. 

Perfect Sense

I've never quite gotten used to the suburban irony of driving to walk. Sometimes I fight it; I once spent weeks figuring out how to traipse through the woods  to reach my favorite Reston trail.

This was fun but impractical. Yes, I could hike to the trail, but it took more than an hour to reach it and quickly became a three- to four-hour foray. Good exercise, but who has that many hours in the day?

Most of the time then, I resign myself to the practice. I jump in the car and burn precious fossil fuels just to amble on trails rather than streets. It's a strange way to live when viewed in the arc of human history, but to us modern folk, it makes perfect sense.

Turqoise Trail

A new year, a new direction. Yesterday I walked a familiar trail, but instead of heading straight at an intersection, I turned left and kept going around in a big circle along a route known as the Turquoise Trail.

I'm not sure why the path is named after this particular shade of blue, but I like the alliteration — and I liked the trail, too. It was 30 minutes around, a perfect length for a blustery January afternoon. 

There were a few dog walkers and some hearty hikers decked out in hats and scarves and gloves. Winter is here, whether we like it or not. Walking through it (almost always) makes it easier to take. 

New Town Square

I'm not a numbers person, but these numbers impress me: In 1986 there were only a few hundred miles of rails-to-trails in this country. Now there are more than 25,000. 

"We want trails that are connected in ways that are similar to roads or streets or that connect individual trails to places people want to go, be it shopping, schools or other activities, " said Ryan Chao, the president of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, in a recent Washington Post article. 

Chao sees these trails as the new town square. And why not? Trails connect people, too. 

Philadelphia has 400 miles of them and plans to double that. You can travel the Great Allegheny Passage from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Maryland, then pick up the C&O Canal Trail to cruise into D.C. 

You can take the Katy Trail across Missouri. You can cross much of Ohio on trails and big chunks of Illinois and Iowa, too. One of these days, you'll be able to take the Great American Rail Trail from here to Washington State. No rush to get in shape for that trek just yet ... but one of these days!

(The Capital Crescent Trail in Maryland, part of the future Great American Rail Trail.)

The Wild Side

Yesterday I found the trail I was looking for. It was tucked away in a corner of the county that adjoins the Fairfax County Parkway and its monolithic soundproof walls. 

The path featured several fair-weather stream crossings, but nothing that could scoot below or hang above all that parkway asphalt, as impassable as a raging river. 

There was a tunnel under a lesser road, though, a dark enclosure that paralleled a stream. I took that — despite the warning.

Sometimes you have to walk on the wild side.  Even in the suburbs. 

Making Connections

I learned yesterday that federal infrastructure grant money isn't just going to roads and bridges. Some of it, admittedly a small bit of it, is going to trails. 

The D.C. area will get $25 million to improve pedestrian and bike connections throughout the area, part of what is hoped will be 900 miles worth of local trails throughout the District and five counties of the DMV.

While some of the money will be spent sprucing up paths that are already there, other parts will be used to provide connections between trails. That's the part that interests me. People love to walk or bike, to move through space on their own steam. But they also like, in fact they need, to get somewhere, to commute to work, for instance. 

I know from my own explorations this winter how exciting it is to find passages between trails, to know that your wanderings can take you somewhere. And I'm glad that the humble little trail systems of our country are getting at least a small part of their due.

Hybrid Walks

Here in the suburbs we have few bears, and no lions or tigers.  But we do have automobiles.

This morning, lured on by the buoyancy of the air and the radiance of the light, I turned right on a narrow road and (staying off it for the most part) made a dash on foot to the safety of a path. I was happy when I tucked into my usual route, because the road is hilly and cars travel fast along it.

On the way home, I thought about the walkability quotient of my neighborhood and how greatly it has improved since I've come to know the shortcuts and the cut-throughs, many of them woodland trails. 

The best routes around here are the hybrid walks, part paved, part pounded. They are the safest ways, and in some cases the only ways, to get where you're going. 

 

From Ordinary to Extraordinary

To the untrained eye this is nothing but an ordinary parking lot. But to me — and the other people who parked their cars here — it's a suburban trailhead. 

Yesterday I took two short walks, both of which began in parking lots. In each case, I had to find the paths, which took online research (which happened years ago) and on-foot exploration. Then I traipsed the paths themselves, an ongoing process of discovery. 

Who would guess that less than a quarter-mile from the lot above there are fox dens and creek bends and greening briars glittering with raindrops? 

The photo above was snapped quickly with no attention to angle or light. But I'm glad it looks as ordinary as it does. It's proof that around here, the ordinary can lead to extraordinary. 

Wind-Whipped Walk

On Friday, ahead of what I'd heard would be a snow-stormy weekend, I took a brisk walk around Lake Audubon. Well, not exactly around, but as far as I could go. 

The wind had already picked up, and it was moving across the lake, creating patches of sunlight on the water that glimmered and moved with the wind.

I was wearing my warm black parka with the faux-fur-lined hood, which kept me warm but hampered movement, so I wasn't skittering ahead as quickly as I usually do. But I was comfortable and meditative and feeling energized by the wind in my face. 

These are the moments that gladden the lives of walkers everywhere — or at least this one.