Sunday morning

Beaver Creek trail

On Saturday night, my area was “treated” to a downpour. I got off lucky here on Roundtop, getting just over 1.5 inches of rain in 30 minutes. Only a few miles away, more than 3 inches fell, and several miles further away, flooding resulted from the nearly 6 inches of rain that fell in an hour. That’s why I say I was lucky. I didn’t get that.

When Sunday morning arrived, the entire area was fogged in, and the humidity was oppressive to the extreme. My forest was simply dripping, but I still felt the need to go for a walk, so I headed the few miles down the mountain to Gifford Pinchot SP. The trails there tend to be wider than the ones at Roundtop, so I figured I wouldn’t get so wet. And, truth be told, I was looking to walk someplace that I don’t see every day, just for a slight change.

The forest at Pinchot isn’t really very different than the one up on Roundtop. Certainly, the tree species are much the same. The trees where I walked on Sunday tend to be a bit smaller than those at home. The underbrush tends to be not quite as thick. The result of being surrounded by smaller trees and less underbrush is that I can see further into Pinchot’s forest than I can at home right now, a small but welcome change that makes photography a bit easier and more interesting, at least to me.

The haze from the humidity was so thick that breathing took an extra effort, and I felt as though I was breathing something thick and solid enough to eat. Who needs to eat when you can breathe in humidity and get your calories that way? Truly, I have had soup that was less substantial than Sunday morning’s air.

I was the first person to walk the trail on Sunday. I brushed aside many cobwebs, all outlined in dew and raindrops. The mud was empty of human tracks, and I saw few signs of animals in the squishy mud yet either. The creek ran muddy, not surprisingly. The forest had the look of midsummer, still very green but with few flowers or brightly-colored fungus to add different shades or contrast to the woods.

My walk was largely a silent one, except for the sound of water dripping from the leaves and the shrill cry of a distant blue jay.