Pinelands in the Snow

Cranberry Trail, Brendan Byrne State Forest

21 March 2015

Everyone within a half-mile radius of home is at a conference. The rest of the usual weekend dinner gang is either at a conference or commitment. It's Friday morning, it's the first day of spring, and it's snowing again. By evening we'll have at least five inches on the ground with no hope of a thaw by ride time tomorrow morning. 

I wonder if Our Jeff is leading a hike.  I don't want to spend Saturday doing taxes and cleaning the house. I send him an email.  

Yes, he writes, a 7-mile hike in Brendan Byrne State Forest, a hike that had been rained out last Saturday.  Count me in.  I feel better already.

I meet Our Jeff at his house for an 8:30 departure.  We drive south to Funkadelic's "first ya gotta SHAKE THE GATE," because Jeff has a multi-CD changer and a PhD in funkology.

I've been down to the Pinelands a bunch of times since grad school, all on my bike.  This will be the first time on foot since I took my last field sample. I wonder how close we'll get to that little bend in that creek where my sampling sites were. I wonder if I'll recognize anything at all. I wonder if I'll ever get used to not calling it Lebanon State Forest.

We get to the Ranger's Station with close to an hour to spare. It's enough time to assess the snow situation and take pictures of the sky. 

For snowshoes, Jeff says, one needs at least 8 inches. We're standing on three, maybe four, wet and melting fast. "We'll bare-boot it," he decides. Sounds kind of obscene, but an hour of Funkadelic will do that.

Jeff digs out an old trail map for me to keep*.  It still says "Lebanon State Forest." Newer ones are the same map with "Brendan Byrne State Forest" stickers slapped slanted over the old print.

Nine of us are signed in, including one person whom I haven't seen in a few years. I say something, and this person looks at me, confused.  "Who are you?"

I smile and try blow away my bangs.  "You know me." Reconnecting is weird at first; this person has walled off the past and I am part of the life left behind.

I know something about all that. I've tried to do it more than once. In the end, though, there's only so much running we can do before we have to let then back into now. It sounds trite, but it's easy to forget that the past makes us who we are.  That I'm thinking all of this as I traipse through the forest I called home during the Lost Years is not lost on me.

For flat terrain, this is rough going.

Snow is tumbling from tree branches onto our heads. We stop to remove layers more than once. My socks are too thin, my boots too loose; my feet hurt. I haven't worn these 19-year-old boots on a hike in many years. I've forgotten that I need fat socks, not toe warmers, to keep my feet happy.  I invoke Rule #5.

This brings back memories of hummock-hopping.

We break for lunch at Pakim Pond. Even half-frozen, the water is brown. Snow covers sand.

In the shade of the pavilion, I have to put on layers again. My ankle brace is making my knee sore. I'm working on a huge blister on my other heel. I'm the only one not dressed in technical wear, save for the gaiters Jeff has lent me. Until I get my foot situation sorted, I'm not investing in any high-priced clothing for the rest of me.

After lunch we walk over to the spillway that separates Pakim Pond...

... from Cooper Branch.

We come in at 7 miles. Trust Our Jeff to get the distance exactly right. After we change back into our street shoes, five of us head for the Red Lion Diner. Diners and traffic circles go together in South Jersey; one cannot exist here without the other.

As we drive home, it's nearing 50 degrees. The roads are clear and dry. I'm sunburned and happy. Tomorrow we can head for the hills.


(*Which I will later find, halfway to mush, in the dryer.)