On a sunny Wednesday morning my compatriot Michaela and I meet our crew of day hikers at the Cotton Mountain trail head. We’ve got a crew of regulars plus a new face ready to tackle the Cotton to Livermore loop, take in the winter air, and mug for photos at the vista with Squam spread out before us and glittering in its shroud of snow and ice. The first leg of the trek is a feisty affair; one of our bubblier hikers and I get into the weeds on conservation strategies, climate change and our individual responsibility in dealing with it (as opposed to government or business taking initiative), how not to lose your breath while climbing, community service, splitboarding, her son, working in food service, communicating with the public, and…..well, it’s a rambling kind of conversation, perfect for rambling on up Cotton. We hit the first summit in high good spirits, snap the requisite pictures to prove it and begin the traverse over to Livermore. This is the point in the hike where we settle in to a quieter passage, thinking our own thoughts and taking notice of the snowy woods enveloping us. In my experience, this is when folks start making discoveries, listening for the language of the forest, wondering what secrets are being told beneath the blanket of snow, scanning the treetops for the shape of a porcupine observing us from her unlikely perch. The hardwood forest in winter, rich with birches, beeches, and maples, is a book of silver thrown open, waiting for us to read, if we can, the wealth of stories written on its sparkling pages. We find deer tracks crossing our trail and notice the difference between a walking set of prints and bounding ones; we deliberate on whether this was a buck or a doe, looking at the size and shape and noticing that the imprints from the dewclaws are plainly visible in the snow. We come across seeds scattering the snow beneath a stand of spruce and wonder if a family of messy Evening Grosbeaks have been feasting here, tearing the cones open for a treat. My favorite clues of the day are scratch marks on a hemlock, ascending in pairs at regular intervals up the trunk. Who left them - the ever elusive American Marten, once driven out of these forests by loss of habitat and our greed for its luxurious fur coat? A sleepy-eyed “quill pig”, seeking a meal of bark and tender young twigs? Or a fisher after a meal of porcupine? Based on the size of the marks and distance between them my guess is a fisher but I’ll never really know. And, to me, thats okay. The important part here is being able to share them with my fellow hikers, to create that image of a lithe, sleek animal darting straight up the tree; to allow them to imagine life a fisher, as a marten, as a porcupine, feel the bark beneath their claws and smell the rich bouquet of the forest. These woods can feel almost empty sometimes, the wind cutting through, rattling the leafless branches and birdsong stilled in the middle of the day. But small tokens, scratch marks on the pages of snow remind us that the forest is urgently, vibrantly alive - whether that life takes the form of the tiny black springtail “snow fleas” pockmarking every disturbance in the powder, chickadees resting on their perches, or the maples themselves, carrying out their hidden machinations with only the occasional groan or creak as they bide their time and wait for the explosion of spring. And while our busy brains may not always be attuned to this liveliness, something within us is. And that is why we come to the woods, whether the trees ring with conversation and laughter or the only sound is the crunch of snow as we tramp onward, and think, and watch, and listen, preparing for our next discovery.
Elijah enjoys snowboarding, making soup, and reading. You can learn more about Elijah here!