That Day

“There are so many things about That Day to love and remember. The very fact that you chose a weekend to hike when the sun would be out this time of year is enough to indelibly burn it into your memory. Even before you reach the trailhead you can tell you have found That Day. The sun through the car window makes you too warm so you crack the driver’s window a bit. It’s still not warm enough to roll the windows all the way down but what the hell, you do it any way.

When you finally get there and you lock the car you swing your pack over your shoulder. How light is this thing any way? It feels like there’s nothing in it. You tighten down the straps of your pack and it feels like a hug from an old friend. Then as your boots first hit the dirt of the trail you get that surge of giddy energy. You know the feeling. The feeling that shouts in your head, “Hot damn! Ain’t no mountain too high! Ain’t no stream too fast and deep to stop me!”. The energy that assures you that, yes, you can in deed hike forever and not tire.

Then after about a half hour of fast paced hiking you realize that there is no need for the lower half of your pants legs. The feeling of the cool air and warm sun on your bare white legs only adds to the giddy energy. The trail is still moist but firm and spongy. It carries you like you haven’t been carried in months.

The hillsides and hollows that were just recently a blur of dull browns and grays now display shocks of green here and there. The moss that stays green all year has a new brightness and the fiddlehead ferns are just coming out of their fetal positions. The yellow of the odd Buttercup flowers and the nearly unnatural color of the purple violets only break up the green.

On That Day you almost hate to stop for a lunch break but you come across a spot that is too wonderful to not sit down in and enjoy. It may be a small pine stand where the needles on the forest floor are dry and warm from the sun. The smell is almost over whelming. It may be a nice log with a padding of now dry moss that just begs to be sat on. You smell the fresh sent of wild onions somewhere near by.

As you hike along a hillside in the sunshine you actually become hot even though the sun is only relatively hot to the context of the time of year. You don’t mind the sweat because you know when you reach the top the cool breeze will be waiting for you.

The final evidence that you have indeed found That Day is when you are sitting in your quiet little camp as the sun goes down and you anticipate the dramatic drop in temperature. But it never comes and there is a still warm breeze. In the dusk you hear birds that have not been heard for months and they almost sound brand new to you.

And so we sit and wait for the time when That Day will actually be This Day.”