Wolf Rocks Overlook, Forbes State Forest

It’s been such a very long time since I’ve been here except in winter.  In fact, it’s possible that I’ve only ever been drawn to Wolf Rocks in the winter.  I don’t seem to have any photos of this place in any other season, nor any memories.  Some places (and people?) are best when they’re dormant and at rest.  The porcupines have ravaged the bark on the upper branches of the trees at Wolf Rocks.  Click on this photo to see.

In 11 years of rare, occasional visits, I've never encountered another human being at this place--until Wednesday of last week.  When I turned onto the short connector trail that leads to the rocks, I saw a fresh pair of small footprints...and realized with a bit of sadness that I would not have the overlook to myself this time.

Worse, I suspected that the person leaving those footprints was a solitude-seeker like myself and almost certainly a woman.  I'm sensitive to the difficulties that a female nature-lover must feel when she's alone on the trail.  I don't think I come across as creepy or dangerous, but all the same, I probably overdo it when I try NOT to seem creepy: smiling, and chattering, and hurrying away...  Anyhow, the young lady didn't seem scared, but we were both a little disappointed to have our solitude interrupted, I think.

I sought a lonely place that I know out on the northern edges of the rock face, where I sat to meditate and read a poem that I'd brought with me, all the while taking in the pleasant view of snow-covered hills beneath the dark vertical pillars of naked trees.  By the time I was finished, she was long gone.  I must say, it was good to have a few hours of winter up there in the highlands.  I miss real winters.

The disappearance of winter has been a nagging sorrow for me.  This is a "first world problem," I know.  The discontents of climate change are serious and life-threatening, and the poorest of the world's people will suffer first and worst.  But I admit that I mostly miss the snow, and the cold, and the whole aesthetic of the winter season.  I miss the whitish glow in a room when the snow on the ground outside refracts the dim, gray light of day back into the room when the sun is hidden.  It's a cool, pale radiance that comes from nowhere and everywhere: snowlight.  I miss the hunkering down, the taking shelter, the feeling of getting cozy inside your den as raging Boreas claims the world outside.  

It's especially fun to hole-up in a tent out on a trail in the winter, when the world is silent and bright.  The late 90s were a 5-year August for me.  I lived in Africa and missed the cold seasons painfully.  I've never stopped missing them even though I've been home for 22 years.  I savor them when they are mine--however briefly--and I long for them when all is sunshine and heat.  This dull gray November limbo that lasts through April is no substitute for the wise solemnity of a genuine winter.  The cold makes us find and face our inner selves.  There's a beauty in the cold that can be found no place else.  

A Sacred Place in the Snow

Pleasant Grove United Presbyterian Church, dating back to 1780.

9 Degrees in the Laurel Highlands

It was bitterly cold up on Laurel Summit.

Not too cold for a book and a thermos of coffee at a picnic table in the effete rays of the winter sun.  Were the sun's rays ever so ineffective?  On those rare occasions when we get brief tastes of a real winter, I like to read books that are about the season, and I like to do it in the cold.  This most excellent novel was The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason: an instant favorite set in the mountainous eastern reaches of a rapidly-waning Austro-Hungarian Empire during World War I.  

Beam Rocks and Laurel Mountain in the Winter

This is Beam Rocks, just about half a mile off Laurel Summit Road in the Forbes State Forest.  It's a relatively unremarkable view unless you look past the rooftop of the forest and into the middle distance of the picture.  There you can see the snowy fields of the farmland east of the ridge.  This place was lovely in the wintry silence and the deep solitude that only the snow can lend it.

These rocks are right along the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail, but their proximity to the road makes them a favorite for people who would never expend the energy needed to go even just one mile further into the woods.  And of course they often bring their spray paint along to deface the rocks.  Last time I was here, there was a teenager carrying an actual old fashioned boombox and blaring The Beatles as if he'd discovered them.  Why would anyone go to the woods with a boombox?  And The Beatles, really?

I like kids these days.  I do not typically find them whiny or entitled--though guys my age love to say otherwise.  But it's funny how a 15-year old will look at you with a straight face and ask, "Have you ever heard of a band called Pink Floyd?"  To them, it's all so new--the tired old music that feels so much to me like the day before yesterday.  There were lots of cross-country skiers up on the ridge, and this little warming hut was open.

On a Wednesday morning, of course, the woodstove was cold.  But it's a pleasant space.  I love holing up against the winter in a cabin with a woodburner. 

It was such a joy to have a few days of real winter in January and a few again in February.  It definitely thins out the crowds and casts an all-noise-absorbing muffle out over the hills and fields.  I got a little turned around while hiking from Beam Rocks toward Wolf Rocks.  I never did make it to my destination and instead circled back to Laurel Summit Road.

My own children have so little experience of snow!  They've never dug a snow tunnel--though they have made snowpersons.  They're girls, so when they were little I used to tell them it doesn't have to be a snowman; it can be any kind of snowperson they want it to be.  My brothers and I used to build such elaborate snow castles--based on photos of ruined Scottish castles that I saw in the old Tree of Knowledge Encyclopedias long ago.  I would read through encyclopedias as if they were novels.

It was a real joy to see the Laurel Mountain Ski Resort up and running!  And there were plenty of skiers considering that it was the middle of a weekday.  Last time I came here, it felt like the spooky set of a Scoobie Doo cartoon--abandoned and overrun with tall grass.  That was seven or eight years ago.

To see what I found last time I ventured there, click here.  I love it when things get better... Also, to see another bright, sunny interlude in South Florida, click here.  Not sure how I got to Florida twice in one winter, but these are the days for a little extra self-indulgence.  (It's just that Florida would never be my first choice.)