Downhill to the Trail

As if it were a nearby river that I depended on for water, and transportation and food, the rail trail out in the back of my house is a critical egress from my house out into the world.  The driveway up to Route 208 isn’t so much further.  But its steeper.  And unless you’re driving along Route 208, which is fine, people whipping around the corner at 60 mph, without much of any shoulder it isn’t where you’d want to do much of anything else on foot.  It’s downhill to the trail.  And there is next to no traffic.

 

This year there seems to be no end to the snow.  It’s fallen.  It’s been added to.  It isn’t melting.  It’s impossible to ride a bike on the trail with a covering of packed snow.  And this year I’ve come a long way with the cross country skiing routine.  Slowly my thighs are building up the requisite strength to push and then hold the weight of my body on one thigh, while the other swings back and then down to relieve the weight on its side. It takes a while to get a rhythm and move beyond the faltering, painful half-steps that get you started. 

The journey right, into town has a slight incline downward and I have good memories of finding my stride in that direction. The turn left, up to the apple orchard sets off at an incline.  Not long after you start you need to take your skis off again when you reach Cedar Lane and then again, not long after when you come upon Plains Road. Then, after the bridge, over the stream, you have a more pronounced incline.  You notice it but it passes in a moment pedaling a bike, where as on skis the destination in your mind, Boppys Lane can seem grindingly long.  Up on the hill to the left in the grey house two dogs reliably bark and me and anyone along the trail. 

 

I snap a few photos as always.  There’s an impressive wall of mist that is sliding in front of the Trapps, as the sun descends.  I turn my skis around awkwardly.  I’m sweaty and though its cold outside my frame is warm.  And now, heading home this section becomes a lot more fun.  With a downward incline I can finally, for the first time in this trip anyway, feel the motion properly of sliding, holding, lifting, adjusting.  Concentrating on the cyclical count of one-one, two-two, up until one hundred I do what I can to lose myself in the repetition before looking up, before stopping.  There is no one else on the trail.

 

 

 

Monday, 02/08/21