A Long Walk

I took a long walk with the dog today. We are staying at a friend’s cabin in the Sierra foothills near a mountain lake, woodsy and quiet. There is a trail behind their house that follows an old rail line for three miles. My feet are still complaining, and I think there’s a blister on the bottom of one of them.

You can tell the trail used to be train tracks; it’s narrow and flat, with blasted out rock on one side and ancient posts holding rusty barbed wire on the other. I wonder if it was a line from Gold Rush days.  A stream meanders along the barbed-wire side, slow and shallow, iced over in places this January day.

Tie runs ahead of me the whole way, stopping to wait for me if he gets too far ahead, running back sometimes to see what is taking me so long, getting interested in a bush or deer sign for a moment, then galloping ahead of me again, ears flying. I’m glad to have him with me. It feels a little creepy in the woods alone when you’re not used to it. I almost expect to see some crusty old miner emerge from the woods, pick-ax over his shoulder, looking for the train to take him to the assay office in town. I’m a little nervous that a mountain lion may be watching me from the rocks above, but assure myself that my brave hound will scare any cats away.

After walking for a while, I forget to watch for unwanted visitors and start to notice the woods. The tiny cedar and pine trees, bright green beneath their giant elders. The smooth, dark red manzanita bushes with silvery coin leaves next to  the  low, spreading limbs of live oaks. Pine needles cover the trail and hang like tinsel from the leafless bushes growing under them. Towering Valley oaks mix their elegant, shapely leaves with the pine needles underfoot and look like upside-down puzzle pieces. The path opens up to shady slopes dotted with tall pines, sunshine streaking in where it can find an opening. Bright green grass pushes up through brown leaves, taking the opportunity a recent rain gave it, taking the chance that snow may yet come and freeze it out.

The trail winds on. It’s supposed to be three miles. It’s starting to feel too far. I still have to go back, too. I check my watch and keep walking. I think about Cheryl in Wild with new respect, walking on a narrow trail like this for months, a huge pack on her back.  I decide that if I haven’t reached some sort of end in 15 minutes, I’ll turn around. Just when I get to that time mark, the landscape changes–there’s a road, houses, and power lines–so I commit to going around one more bend. There it is. A gate across the path. The end. I reach it and turn around to trudge home.

Watching for markers that I remember–a big tree, a black rock by the side of the trail, a hole blocked off by metal poles and wire and covered with rocks (could the miner be in there?)–I walk back the way we came, slower, tired, thirsty. Not nervous, though–except when I notice new animal scat on the trail, not deer, could it be mountain lion? Not noticing the beauty I swooned over on the way, either. Tie’s tongue hangs and he plops down to wait for me when he gets ahead too far.

I start to think. My mind isn’t wandering, preparing to fight or flee, or exploring the landscape. It settles on an idea and turns it over as I walk and walk. Finally, the gate at the start of the trail comes in view. We’re back. It feels like an accomplishment. Not just the effort of the walk, but the taming of my fluttering thoughts. I feel ready to sit and write some of those persistent thoughts down.