Arches of Witch Hazel

My good friend Ryan has been taking me running for the past two weeks. I found myself motivated after a recent marathon he ran to join him in the mountains for his trail running workouts. And because Ryan has been helping me with my own small business, our schedules line up well and makes for an efficient way of maintaining our motivation, feeding off one another's inspirations.

It seemed, too, like a good opportunity for personal growth and overall wellness. The general cliches, that is. As an arborist, I consider myself an industrial athlete, so I'm always looking for ways that I can improve my physical performance on the job site. The anaerobic and aerobic conditioning that running provides is a good opportunity to improve my endurance, and hopefully my physical longevity and also my mental toughness and grit. Ryan has been going into depth about the benefit running has for the body and it's functioning properly and more efficiently as an entire system.

Not to mention that our dogs Indy and Blue love being able to accompany us on our jaunts, nipping at our heals and each others, striding along, wallowing in cold October puddles that reflect the burning red and sugar maples and birches, exploding through the wiry low bush blueberry and mountain laurel, bounding from trail side to trail side, setting the best example of the free and careless and pure energy that these hills can draw out of us. We are a pack, sometimes in single file or scattered loosely along the track, pumping hurriedly up each ridge with wild eyes and panting smiles. Running wild is fun, and cresting the summit of another peak, we know it.

So far Ryan and I have logged about 25 miles over the course of 4 days together. We are training for a  15K at the end of November. A few thousand feet of elevation gain over a mix of loose, rocky washout, swampy meadow, granite outcrops and well-worn, rooty single track. The vistas are spectacular, albeit littered sometimes with adolescent vigilante garbage like cheap beer boxes and broken glass. From both Peterson Mountain looking east, or from the top of Campbell's Ledge, looking north and south, the trees are glowing in autumn colors, and the entire breath of the Wyoming Valley spills out both ways along the Susquehanna River. The temperature is cool and crisp and it seems to sting the lungs and leave them pinging. As we run the rims of these hills that cuddle the small village of Harding, we joke about old Campbell and the legendary tale of him riding off the ledge to avoid capture. True or not, I fancy in my imagination that the British troops floating downriver alongside Iroquois warriors saw Campbell's Ledge illuminate just around noon, the same way it does now, nearly three hundred years later, beneath the scratchy thud of our steady, chopping cadence.

My knees hurt a little, and my feet hurt a little bit too, now that I think about it. But it makes me happy to be running, especially up hill, knowing that I have the strength to do that in the mountains where things are rocky and muddy and tough. And hard to get to. Sometimes I need to slow it down to one breath, one step at a time, which is an exercise in simplicity I guess. I try to swing my arms heavy like Ryan does, so they can lift me up hill, as he coaches me from up ahead. I try to be graceful and float, but most of the time it feels like my legs are fuzzy and falling apart. As a shadow of hope at improving my pace crosses over my mind, I spin my wheels on the wet red oak leaves and soupy fall clay that hasn't washed out yet, passing under huge arches of witch hazel bent over the entrance of this trail like some sacred place. More so though, I am just glad to get in a little run with my dog and a good friend before work for an hour or so. For all the little aches and pains, I always feel a little bit better. A little bit stronger. A little bit faster. And most importantly, a little wilder.

The Headwaters Project

Last weekend Professor Hronbeam and I set out on a quest for the headwaters of the south branch Mehoopany Creek for an overnight trip out of the Windy Valley.  It was epic.

Ice Climbing Compilation.

This is a quick video I put together of my ice climbing footage so far this winter. Enjoy.

Henry Lott Pretenders.

Last week we (the non-fictious Kasson and Hornbeam) tried to put up another ascent on the falls, by way of a hike/cross country ski mixed route up Henry Lott Road and then northeast across the top of the mountain. And as the saying goes, there are senders, and pretenders. This time we ended up as pretenders.

The skiing was hard on the gradual uphill grade that is the beginning portion of Henry Lott Road. Relentless I believe is the word we consistently used. I had mixed emotions on the long road up, as the skis came off and on and I battled my efficiency on them. With the skis and my climbing gear in tow I think I was around 30 lbs or so. If it weren't for the compaction of a snowmobile's previous visit, I don't even think I could have made it as far as I did.

Problem was that when we left Henry Lott Road and headed northeast, we picked up another trail that actually took us back to the northwest (the direction we were coming from) and never quite cut the top of the ridge like we needed for landing correctly in the next valley over. At the top of the mountain looking down into the valley we needed, it just wouldn't work out to bushwhack our way back to the northeast in the right direction. And thus we had been defeated.

Aside from me blowing out one of my cross country shoes, Hornbeam losing a tread from one of his skis, and the unimaginable amount of snowsnakes that we had to dodge, we did land a sweet view of the northwest ridge of windy valley (behind me in the photo) from a fantastic foodplot northeast of Henry Lott Road. If it weren't for my ski shoe blowing out, I may have made some other bad decisions too. Just like always, it worked out yet again in windy valley.

Ganoga Falls.

Sending it on my last visit to the glens.

Johnny Kasson and Professor Hornbeam.

Rising up out of Forkston to the southeast is a tributary so sacred that only the most grizzled of alpine adventurers dare seek the fruits that hang there. Men that very well may be made of that mountain themselves can handle the trek, but only if the mentality about the journey is as sharp as the ridgelines to be crossed. Of course, when the snow is deep and the ice hangs sure, you will find Windy Valley's favorite sons stomping up through this canyon. The punishment to get there and back is just as rewarding as the holy sights to be seen, and be sure to know that aside from all physical and mental strongholds that even the hardest of alpine men have, it will be the holy ghost alone that you call on to guide you back down through this deep fisher of earth.

This a peek at the long and epic story of Johnny Kasson and Professor Hornbeam, names that echo through the hills like a hawk's scream and fade just the same. Where they live is the wilderness, under the mountain ice, nestled in the duff of the forest floor. There is no map for the trails they seek. It is the wild world in which they live that they play. And although adventure is most times painful, it will tell the truth of a man.

Johnny Kasson was light headed and soaked with sweat. Five miles now of high-stepping through a foot of snow or more, he was seeing things in the landscape that weren't there. He was not hydrated properly, and his accomplice, Professor Hornbeam, walked on up ahead, unassuming and almost bored with the trip so far.

"What do you think bud?" Kasson chirped. He had little faith in Hornbeam's navigation, yet knew it was only Hornbeam that held the key to unlocking this route.

"Just up here, over this next bench we will drop into the next canyon and that's where we want to be," Hornbeam said from the corner of his mouth over-shoulder.

Three more benches and now they were standing at the top of the canyon starting to cut downgrade and lose some elevation. It was the wrong canyon.

"It's the second one we want bud," Hornbeam exclaimed with a sickening excitement.

Johnny Kasson sunk more and more into a state of depression. Both the back and front of his legs were tightening now with cramps. Vision was blurry, but vision was less critical than the muscles needed to move over the hills. For Kasson, both were fading fast with the light of day.

Up and up they stomped to the very top of the tributary.  Now on top of the mountain they could swing east and gain properly on the second cut in the landscape. It was here, in this second cut, that hid the jewel of the journey.

Kasson had called upon his friend Hornbeam some weeks ago to guide him up the mountain to a fabled ice route. Hornbeam responded that he would, but it would be no easy task.  

"Hah!" Kasson said. "No task is easy if it's done right!"

"Just remember Johnny, these hills are no friend of yours," Hornbeam's words rattled like the tail of diamondback.

And now, weeks later and only a few hundred yards from the pitch Kasson was dealing with the reality of that warning. Down one more ravine he followed Hornbeam until finally, at last, Hornbeam cackled with excitement.

Tucked deep in the mountain was the falls. A beautiful wall of shiny white and blue and was silent with all the sounds of nature. Kasson dropped to his knees as a feeling of ecstasy rushed over him. Finally he could swing his ice axes on such a magical line and feel the exhiliration of trying to send this frozen route.

"Feast your eyes on that Bud," Hornbeam said with the intimidation of the sight in front of him.

And feast they did, and climb he did. Kasson tried with all the energy he had left to put up the route, but he was tired and weak and fell short of the mark time and time again. Hornbeam looked on with no expectation but rather pure observance of nature and all it's might and beauty. For you don't venture into nature for pride, you come here for humility. It's in the wild that you learn about your weakess, not your strengths. Afterall, it's the weakness, not the strength, that makes the difference. Hornbeam had given Kasson his chance. Kasson had taken the chance and was left cold and wet and no more a man than before this hike into the hills. But he had tasted that water on the verge of freezing, and although he had failed the route, that holy water was forever in him. It is a taste that lives forever on the palette.

Another two hours and they were down the mountain, back in the homely valley where the chimney's bellowed with smoke. There was no talk as dusk approached, only the sound of feet pressing a path through deep snow. Kasson was beaten badly, totally gummied and hurting down in the soul somewhere. His heart was not broken, it was his spirit that needed mending. Hornbeam was up ahead floating over the landscape like an angel floats through the gray light at the end of a day. Here was the great Johnny Kasson, alpinist, adventurer, patriot, at the end of his line and at the end of his wit, beaten down by the wild hills of Windy Valley. And afterall, Hornbeam thought, he asked for it.

Peterson Mountain.

Mountain Laurel and shadow. Northwest slope, Peterson Mountain.