Clark Trail after School, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012

 Needed exercise. Needed hike. Ditched faculty meeting. Made it to Clark by 2:45. Checked sunset time:4:40. Started hiking at 2:50.Ran into Nina France and No Name around mile 3, going opposite way. Finished hike at 4:37, three minutes before sunset. Don't know exactly when it really got dark. . . maybe 30 minutes later. . . . .

 It was around 60 degrees, but the trail wasn't crowded. A few trail runners passed me going the opposite way and the same way. There was a little family on a bench--wonder if they got out before dark.

DeClue Trail at Greensfelder: Friday, November 23

 Really ended up on the Declue Trail again, which is about 6.7 miles long. This whole hike took me 3 hours and 8 minutes on this day. It was about 45 degrees, sunny. A few bicyclists, much less than last week. I guess that's what ten degrees cooler will do. And some of the cyclists I saw were struggling. Two were even resting and complaining.  I also saw a couple trail running. They didn't know about the"orange" trail--so I offered them some information. The woman thanked me for saving them a longer run than they'd wanted. I like this trail.  You hike through the woods. You hike and look through the trees at one point and see Six Flags, eerie and ghost-like this time of year. Deserted roller coasters through the trees. There are a few inclines, but nothing too strenuous. I'm not sure why it takes me three hours to hike only 6 miles--except that the trail is rocky and covered with leaves--so I go slowly so as not to fall.  It felt as if I hiked more quickly this week. And I had more energy, too.

 There's a deer in this one. She stood for the longest time with his partner and watched me. Of course, she was closer than the picture communicates.

 I'm obsessed with the color left in the woods in wintertime.

 I know I have pictures of assorted friends and dogs near this outcropping.

 You hike through a strand of pines. Not as tall as at Hawn, but comforting and quiet.

 Color again!

 Right at the end. Holly berries!

Thanksgiving Eve, 2012: Babler's Dogwood Trail

After four o'clock, orange becomes the dominant color. This is the Equestrian shelter through the trees as I hiked away from it.

 Three o'clock in the afternoon. Kids and Moms just leaving the playground on the day before Thanksgiving. Can't believe how the area has been built up in the past thirteen years. No more Bader's Meat Market at Highway 100. Subdivisions, subdivisions, subdivisions.

 I still get excited about the last little color in the woods.  The leaves above almost looked like stained glass in the late afternoon sunlight.

 Again, all of the orange.

 Tall trees. I snapped this photo just at two families came close. Kids, dogs, slender, athletic wives in running clothes, talkative men with beginning beer bellies and full heads of hair. Wildwood people.

 The shelter again--with its picnic tables and fire places. I had to second guess myself. Is this the shelter Lynnette and I had a fire in so long ago? I'd thought it was at the Beulah Shelter at Greensfelder.

 This was obviously the front yard of someone's house or a CCC building. There were yucca plants and this stone wall. Reminded me of the Lost Valley Trail with all of its hidden remnants of towns.

 Would be fun to have a fire here on a winter day after a hike.

Took me about one and a half hours for the two miles.  I went slowly--didn't want to trip on the rocks under the leaves--and I was taking leisurely pictures. The longer equestrian trail crosses the Dogwood Trail--both trails are much better marked than they were twelve years ago when Katherine Hoelscher and I used to go hiking after work/school. She always liked exploring and taking the unmarked trails to see if her memory served her correctly. I also remember hiking here alone right before Thanksgiving--and seeing a deer.

Greensfelder: Declue Trail

 The Declue Trail at Greensfelder, approximately 6.7 miles. Took me three hours. From 1:20 to 4:20. Sunny, about 55 degrees. Many, many trail bicyclists, but no hikers. A few people on horse back.  I overheard one young biker say to his older companion, (after they passed me for the second time). "That's a long hike. A long walk, must take three or four hours!"  I'm smiling to myself--don't young people hike anymore?  The older companion says, "I used to go on hikes that lasted all day in Colorado. They weren't loops. . ." and their voices trailed off into the woods.

 When the leaves fall, the interesting fungi and mushrooms begin!

 Still can't help but notice the trees that have just fallen--or blown over. They are numerous. More numerous than they used to be because of storms? I couldn't say.

 It was almost warm enough to take off my boots and run my bare feet over the moss--like I did last December 31st on the Rockwood Reservation part of the Green Rock Trail, but today there were just too many bikers--and since I feel in better shape, and just had an iron shot--I wasn't so inclined to stop.

 Waiting for bikers to pass, I noticed these berries. . .

 Nostalgia:  I remember when Katherine Hoelscher and I hiked this trail frequently the fall and winter of '99-'00.  We'd always start by hiking into the woods to find a horse shoe that she and a friend had hung from a tree branch.  I have no idea where that location is now, but I enjoyed wondering if the shoe is actually still there. . . Katherine liked to drive her SUV type Range Rover out to Greensfelder on snowy weekends. I'd go over to her house off Ivanhoe in Southwest City and we'd pack up her dog Lucy and my dog Sam, a few six packs, and of course, Katherine always had cigarettes back then. Sam was a puppy--and he'd usually run off in the snow and I'd have to call and call him for awhile before he'd show up again. Katherine would get annoyed, but she'd usually go hiking with us again anyway.  Once, on a Saturday, we saw a family of deer walking silently through the snow. Sam took off then. When he surfaced, we sat in Katherine's vehicle and drank a few beers, watching the snow fall. When I got home, a frantic Paul (who'd I'd been dating for only about three and a half months) had left five or six messages on my answering machine. The last one was from the Famous Bar, where he was having a few beers. Of course, we met up later that evening.

More nostalgia:  This is the wall where Paul took a photo of me on a hike in 2002.  I had on a red flannel shirt. It's in  my first hiking binder, I think.

Some of the old trail markers remain. The new ones are orange plastic squares with drawings of maple leaves on them.

Bellefontaine Cemetery

 Amazing trees.Compare the exploding colors to the leafless trees of the Lost Valley and the Clark Trails--even though the Bellefontaine walk is four days later. I imagine the thunderstorms predicted for Sunday night will probably knock down most of these leaves, but who knows?  The drought this summer made us all believe we'd have a terribly bland autumn, but it turned out to be the opposite.

 I wondered around awhile, looking for Teasdale's grave. It had been years since I'd consciously sought it out--I think the last time was with Paul--many years ago after he first had the idea that I should take students on trips here.  People left mementos. The statue of white angel--and this recent addition--a translation of Teasdale's poems in Russian, left by the translator, who typed this information on a label stuck inside the waterproof case holding a copy of the book.


Sara Teasdale brings memories of sophomore year of high school--1981-1982. Spring. Her poem "Central Park at Dusk":
Buildings above the leafless trees

Loom high as castles in a dream,
While one by one the lamps come out
To thread the twilight with a gleam.

There is no sign of leaf or bud,
A hush is over everything--
Silent as women wait for love,
The world is waiting for the spring.

 And the poem that I loved at fifteen:

"I Shall Not Care"

WHEN I am dead and over me bright April

Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,

Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted,

I shall not care.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful

When rain bends down the bough,

And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted

Than you are now.

 The last hike of the Fall in Bellefontaine Cemetery. Perhaps the last cemetery hike of the year. The dark obelisk is in memory of a young man's wife (I say he's young, but it's not his grave, so I don't really know), who died at twenty in the early to mid 1800's. The inscription includes not just years, but months and days. . . . she was just shy of twenty-one.