Skannatati to St. Johns, Harriman Park

We hiked this one in reverse, from north to south. Major Tom and Silent Cougar brought
MJ and ZMan along this time. It was an unseasonably warm day in mid-January, a holiday in honor of Martin Luther King. We started at Lake Skannatati, from which we had hiked north on the Long Path so many times. This time we went the opposite way, into terra incognita.

Across Seven Lakes Drive, we traversed the bridge over the outlet from Lake Askoti. Melting ice fed a lively stream below us, tumbling down into Skannatati. Hiking steadily uphill, we dodged a barrage of snowballs from the middle school generation. Over the ridge and down, across route 106 into a mystical realm of musical streams and silent sentinels.

Out of a marsh flowed a stream, swirling past rounded boulders and echoing under shells of ice. We sat there in silence for some time, emptying our minds, and filling them with ancient watery melodies. Deep wooden-timbred chimes, rhythms unbounded by any human obsession with beats and measures, music in no hurry because it was not limited by human lifespans. The stream seemed as interested in us as we were in it. Curious and humorous and talkative, bouncing around the silent, still humans. Magical.

Two larches stood naked, watching over the spot where the marsh waters gathered for their plunge downstream. Fragments of ice sculpted into fantastic shapes were re-fashioned as they slowly melted before our eyes. It was hard to leave this place.

We forged onward and upward, through a mile of mountain laurel. The path was a twisting river itself, the gnarled laurel trunks surrounding us like silent sentinels. We started at the bottom of a bowl, surrounded by a rim of hills. We crested the rim, and dove into a new valley. There was a powerful sense of eyes watching us. We waited in silence, but our hidden friends stayed out of sight. Perhaps it was the laurels, rooted in one spot, but spreading messages through their roots, like electricity. Up and up and up, we entered a new world, the remains of a farm. There were walls, and huge maples that had grown in open fields. The place felt warm and friendly, as if the ruins held no grudge against the race that left them to the forces of freeze and thaw.

Down again, along the old farm road, where countless hooves had once beaten a rhythm of their own. Enormous trees with spreading limbs and giant boles. Across Lake Welch Drive, near the intersection of Johnsontown Road. The Long Path took wild swerves around hills and marshes. Here the birds took a great interest in us, flitting around from thicket to thicket. We talked about them, and they talked about us. Good-natured and welcoming, but always keeping their distance. We were not the most important thing in their day. Insects to catch and seeds to crack.

Where the Long Path turned right, we turned left and emerged from the woods at the church of St. Johns in the Wilderness. A beautiful spot filled with childhood memories. A gentle transition back to a man-made landscape. Trees and stones had been turned into buildings, but very much resembling their wild cousins in the hills and forests. A happy place to end a powerful experience with nature.