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Trail Talk

It's bad enough that it gets dark so early this time of year. I get home from work around 4 p.m. early, by many standards-and there is only about an hour of daylight left. It's depressing to think that I've spent almost every sunlit hour in an office.

This year, with warm weather, has been even worse. The temperature, more like late summer on some days, leads me to believe that it will be light for hours more. Darkness comes as a shock, then-an affront to common sense. What's more, I love the woods in winter: the trees are bare, but you get to walk on leaves and can see the contours of the ridges in a way you don't get to see when those leaves are still on the trees. That is, if you can find enough hours of daylight. One recent day, a man drove up at 4:45 p.m. and said he just wanted to take a short hike. He had only about 20 minute of decent light left, but I certainly knew the feeling.

Last Sunday afternoon my daughter Augusta (in the backpack) and my dog Zeppelin (on the leash) and I stood at the point beyond Dawson's Cemetery and looked down at Catlett's Branch, which we could just make out as a glittery ribbon along the brown forest floor. Michael, Tanya, and Blythe were analyzing the water quality and fishing out small organisms with a net. It was a wide view, much different than you get from the same place in the summer, and it seemed like the way things ought to be: a panorama of quiet trees and ridges, the resting place of several generations of the mountain's stewards behind us, and these three tiny people working below to make sure that things would always be thus. (OK, it didn't last forever. Later, Michael sprinted after a kid on a four-wheeler and asked him never to ride there again.)

But every day can't be a weekend, with the entire day available. With this week's colder weather, you at least have the feeling that darkness should come earlier -- but it's still early. My mother, a licensed counselor, says that she and I both are afflicted by something called Seasonal Affective Disorder, a type of depression touched off by too few hours of light. This can be a serious thing, marked by perpetual tiredness and low energy. I don't know if what I'm talking about is as bad as all that, but I can't argue that it isn't depressing to have these sights in my backyard and precious little light to see them by. I'm waiting for December 21, when knowing that the days won't be getting shorter is comfort enough.

Trail Note: Thanks to an Eagle Scout candidate Peter Fichthorn and his volunteers, there is now a trash bin across from the Mountain House. There are containers for garbage and for recyclable materials, as well as a trash bag dispenser. If you're going to need to carry out trash-or if you just want to pick up things you see along the trails-take a bag with you and leave it in the proper container as you leave.