Sunrise Over Tamaracks in the Valley of the Elk

"I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live . . . "
- Henry David Thoreau

Morning dawned bright and clear on the second day of our Quehanna backpacking trip. (Read about Day 1's adventures here.)

At first light, I popped out of my sleeping bag like toast out of a toaster! Threw open the tent door, put on my boots, and headed out to the rock overlooking the creek and the Valley of the Elk. There I watched the frost turn to gray ghost mist and rise in the dawning light.

I marveled as the sun's magic turned the few clouds in the sky from gray to pink, and the pink was reflected back in the sparkling creek below. Birds began to sing just before the rising sun, sweet-talking it, cajoling it, helping raise it up in the sky with the encouragement of their sweet voices. Then, a burst of glory: Its Golden Self appeared through the tamaracks on the other side of the valley!

I watched for elk but did not see any. Listened to the quiet of the morning air. Contemplated the coming of a new day. Breathed cold air in, breathed frosty breaths out. Wished for a hot cup of coffee for my cold hands, or maybe just for gloves.

After about 45 minutes spent with the rising sun (time well spent, I must say! - is there any better way to start the day?), I headed back to my tent to warm myself up. I discovered my husband awake in his tent, sitting up and reading the newspaper! From there, we settled in to tuck away an excellent piping hot and delicious breakfast of steak, eggs, crispy home fries, hot buttered toast, and steaming cups of coffee! No, alas, that was just wishful thinking . . .

Instead, I ate a munchy bar (one of those healthy granola type things) that I probably should have tucked into my armpit to warm up a bit before opening it; as I bit into it, its consistency in the cold air was about that of a brick. And later I supplemented it with a yogurt, key lime pie flavor to be specific. My husband admitted he stepped out of his tent before dawn, came by my tent, found me gone. Wasn't worried. Knew I would be out checking out the sunrise, watching for elk. Waited for my return.

Maybe it doesn't look too snug in yesterday's picture, but my tent is actually quite comfy, and hanging out in it makes me feel like a little girl playing "house." So I returned to it happily, wrote in my journal, listened to some music. And so we spent a quiet morning alternating between "tent time" and time out on the rock in the sun overlooking the sunny valley.

The temperature warmed up, we removed a few layers, ate what food we had with us for lunch, drank most of our drinks; finally, packed up our tents and all of our gear, and walked down to the creek for one last hour before heading out the trail. Some clouds started to move in after noon, and the day grew quite a bit warmer. In the end, we walked out in short sleeves. Quite something for mid-November!

One of the nice things about the hike out after backpacking is that your backpack is significantly lighter than on the way in! All that is consumable has been consumed by then. All the foods, eaten. All the drinks, drunk. My pack probably weighed at least 5 to 10 pounds lighter!

I stopped by the shallow water impoundment to take a few pictures of the bare, gray trees and their ghostly reflections. Arrived back to the car after an hour or more's hike, only to discover I had dropped my sunglasses somewhere along the journey. So I doffed my pack and gear at the car and jogged back almost a mile to where I had stopped to take pictures.

There the sunglasses were, lying unbroken on the ground! I grabbed them and hot-footed it back to the car, arriving out of breath, hot, red-faced, exhausted, starving, and thirsty. There we packed things up quickly in the waning light and left for home, almost exactly 24 hours after we'd arrived.

From there we sped home, where we found our cat delighted to greet us. (He's the most people-oriented cat I've ever met; deplores being left alone!) A hot shower, a fresh change of clothes, a hot meal, a cold drink, overhead lights, a soft chair to sit in - these are the things that seem like nirvana after a time away in the woods! And so it was that we came back to civilization in the end.

There is always plenty to do when we get home. Gear to air out and stow away, laundry to wash, meals and dishes to deal with, and jobs and other responsibilities to pick back up, eventually - all of the pieces of civilization we had left behind, if only for a short while.

But we did return from the woods. We had to. Like Thoreau, we had several more lives to live. In the end, don't we all . . . ?