Member-only story
Going Feral
Bushwhacking in Early Spring Brings Out the Wildness Within
Winter loosens its grip on the mountains. I tramp a muddy, unimproved road reaching back into a high valley until I come to a beaten path veering into the woods. I stop to catch my breath before following the path down to a brook raging with snowmelt. The path fades into a game trail that gradually disappears. That’s when I feel the first surge of wildness emerge from somewhere deep within. While bushwhacking along the stream, dodging saplings, branches and downed trees, with cold mud squishing underfoot and lingering patches of snow all around, I reconnect with a primal self. Suddenly that life of mine back in the developed lowlands no longer defines me. Not completely, anyhow. Now I am something else, as well — a cognizant, bipedal creature with roots deep in the natural world.
I wipe away sweat beading on my brow despite a chill in the air. The nearby brook is all whitewater crashing over rocks, fed by countless runoff streams. Evergreen wood ferns, still pressed firmly to the ground, foreshadow the growing season ahead. That is comforting. I caress a patch of soft, wet moss covering a huge boulder as shafts of sunlight break through the clouds gathering overhead. Then I traverse a mudslide dropping sharply to the brook. My boot slips on a half-frozen patch of sloped earth and down I go. I laugh…
