In which Amy-Lynn and I get lost in the woods.

I must write this while all the awful details are still fresh in my feverish mind.

Amy-Lynn and I went for a walk in the woods today.  I like walking with Amy-Lynn as she doesn't think me silly for loving fungus and lichen and moss.  In fact she not only shares my love of nature, she is my Obi-Wan, and I, her delighted pupil.  A-L know tons of neat stuff about nature.

Who pooped here ?   She knows.

Who chewed these trees ?  She knows.

Which way is out ?  She ... ummmm ... errrrrr ... thinks it's this way...

 ... or is it this way ?

And so what would have been a post about pretty forest things, bubbling brooks, feathery moss and porcupine chewed trees is not

-- instead it is a post about getting lost in the woods.

We didn't start out lost.  Well I guess no one ever does.  We just ambled.   "Oh look at that".  "Let's go see that."  "Come look at this."   

And got lost.

When the realization that we were lost finally dawned on us, we laughed and joked about it.  Being intrepid woodsy-sorta gals we knew we'd be fine, even though it had been almost half an hour since we'd had our granola bars and juice drinks.  Bravely we'd try to stave off  hunger and thirst and hang on as long as we could.

Cleverly, I demonstrated my full knowledge of what-to-do-when-lost-in-the-woods, to Amy-Lynn.

I hug a tree.  The tree and I  felt a bit awkward so I had to let go.

Stalwart souls that we are -- we forged on.

Beyond the pretty moss covered tree, things started to look a tad more tangled.  

Close up we realized that that was a bit of an understatement.   It was an impenetrable wall of fallen trees.

We decided that if we couldn't go around or through -- we'd go over.  That worked well, until 20 seconds into it, the log Amy-Lynn was walking on broke, and she barely escaped with her life.  OK, an exaggeration -- she barely escaped with a few cuts and scrapes.  OK. OK.  She was fine.  We just decided to walk along a different tree.

What had started out as a two-hour walk in the woods was starting to feel like Gilligan's famous "three hour tour".

Would we make it out before nightfall ?

Were we headed in the right direction ?

Would Sybil have to use her cell phone to call for rescue ?

Oh. Didn't I mention that I had my cell phone with me the whole time ?

But who wants to call home to ask to be rescued from the woods ?   I mean -- how embarrassing !

When we finally got past the tangle of fallen trees, several hours after we'd set out, we arrived triumphantly at the children's playground just two doors down from Amy-Lynn's house.

We'd kept our heads.

We'd had an adventure.

And we'd learned not to go into the woods without a compass or a GPS.


Note:  Amy-Lynn (Flandrum Hill)  version of the day is a tad different in that she doesn't even mention that we got lost !  ;-)   You can check out her version here.

Lost and found ...

The boggy wood at the end of my street is like a big magnet for me.  I love exploring the forest.  Today I thought I'd blaze some entirely new trails.  I brought along my BIG clippers that will cut one inch diameter branches.  I also had four dogs in tow.

About three inches of snow blanketed the ground and a light snow was falling.

The going got tough pretty quickly.  Often my way was blocked by trees that had been knocked over in the fall's heavy windstorms forcing me to find new routes and climb over deadfalls.

While I tried to find the path of least resistance the dogs did the opposite, romping through the undergrowth, noses to the ground.

Eventually my wandering stopped being fun .   I didn't want to follow my own tracks back the difficult way I'd come.  There was no easy path back.  Heck, I wasn't even sure which way WAS back.  For a mere moment I felt a slight panic.  Why had I waited till so late in the day for my walk ?

Though it was overcast, I could see the watery sunlight was brighter in one direction.  I knew that was the general direction of my house. I headed that way but was constantly forced to change direction.  Proceeding in a straight line was impossible.

As I walked I kept my eye out for ribbons as my earlier blazed trails are marked with them.  The main path with blue and side paths with silver.

And then I saw it.   Such a small little thing.  A sliver of silver tied to a tree.  And farther along another one.  And another.  I'd always set the ribbons up so that each ribon was visible from the previous one.

Yipeeee !   Now the hike was fun again. 

I could just enjoy the walk.  I even stopped to take pictures of some neat gooey orange fungus on a tree.   

This is one of the reasons I love exploring.  So many amazing things to see.

But in future I'll be staying on my marked trails.