Baltimore: Shoulder Season

Here in the Mid-Atlantic, "shoulder season" is what I think of as the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when the weather is cold but not quite cold enough, the leaves are gone but the ground not covered in snow, and occasionally, the late, soft sunrises are joined by the warm, still air of an Indian summer (is there such thing as Indian autumn?). For me, this month is what makes Maryland so special. It is obviously not "shoulder season" in New Haven or in hardly any other region of the country.

These photos were taken on two hikes we did on consecutive December weekends - in the Hilton area of the Patapsco Valley (20 minutes to our west), and at Liberty Reservoir (30 minutes to our northwest). Waking leisurely at 7 AM on Saturday, hitting the trailheads closer to 8 AM, and delighting in the low, slow arc of the winter sun and its gentle golden light. A never-ending sunrise. Tinted morning mist drifting up over water and wood.

Susquehanna: Mother River of the Chesapeake

45 minutes to our northeast is the Susquehanna River, which forms the border between Maryland and Delaware. One of the great rivers of this region, the Susquehanna is the longest river on America's Atlantic coast. Its branches drain from the mountains of upstate New York and western Pennsylvania, forming a mighty waterway that flows through Pennsylvania and Maryland to the head of the Chesapeake; it was the ancient Susquehanna River Valley that became the Chesapeake Bay when the ice caps melted and the ocean invaded, separating mainland Maryland from the Delmarva Peninsula ten thousand years ago.

On the southern (Maryland) bank of the river estuary is the Susquehanna State Park, with its network of excellent forest and riverside trails. We have hiked here before, most recently last Thanksgiving. We come here to not only admire the river, but to pay tribute to living history - two mighty trees (an American Beech and a White Oak) that date back to the American Revolution and may have been among the progenitors of their kind on the Atlantic seaboard.

On a cool October morning, the week before our Maine trip (thus marking the last Mid-Atlantic hike of our 2015 fall season), Jane and I drove up the I-95 and parked at the old water mill beside the river. We watched the sunrise color the treetops, the rocky riverbanks, and the placid river below. We walked northwest along an abandoned railroad paralleling the river, then along a footpath. A few motorboats hummed from the distant shore, carrying fishermen we couldn't quite see. Turning away from the river, the trail leads us down a wide fire road and past an old flint tower - also from the days of the Revolutionary War.  Beyond the tower and across a two-lane road bridge, we turn onto a uphill path that leads into the forests south of the river.

Autumn is present in the air, and there is some gold in the canopies, but most of what greets the eyes is still green and lush. This is how mid-October looks in the Mid-Atlantic. We rarely see the brilliant flames of autumn that characterize this time in New England, but we gain in duration what we sacrifice in intensity. Fall comes more gradually here. If you neglect to hit the trail one weekend, the woods will still be where you left them. If you forget the next, then you may be left wondering what happened. Jane and I will be away next weekend, so we are trying not to make that mistake. We climb up the hillside overlooking the river, following the green trail blazes as they curve, almost hidden, through the woods. The treetops are still thick with leaves so that the sunbeams seem to reach us photon by photon, in brilliant flashes of gold light. We've only hiked here before in the late fall and winter, so both of us are quite astounded at how little we recognize the place, how little we can see through the trees.

Which is why we are both struck speechless when we round the corner and see a familiar friend. Jane walks ahead and I take the photo below; the grandfather of American Beech trees, sending its ancient branches up over a hundred feet, like Atlas holding up an absolute amphitheatre of forest canopy. We commune; walk up, touch its bark, gaze upward without any intention or hope of seeing the top. Then we move on through the forest to the south and west. We take a side trail to see the White Oak - equally tall and terribly beautiful - before returning eastward along a farm trail which takes us through a series of hay meadows.  After 8 miles of walking, we return to the car and set off back toward Baltimore around noon on a Saturday. There is usually traffic.

Baltimore: Woodlands and Watersheds

These photos were taken on three separate walks that we undertook on consecutive weekends in September and October.  To me, this is the very best of hiking season in Maryland. In August, the air is still hot and humid, and mosquitoes threaten you the moment you begin to set up camera gear on a riverbank, or pause for rest on a forest log. The first two weeks of September roll around, and suddenly the pre-dawn air is cool enough to hit the trailhead with confidence. No jacket is required; at a brisk pace, you'll reach the perfect temperature five minutes into the woods, and homeostasis will keep you there for the rest of the morning.

The walks depicted here are the Merryman trail along the west bank of the Loch Raven Reservoir (15 minutes north of Baltimore), the Lost Pond trail near the Sweathouse Branch of the Gunpowder River (20 minutes northeast of Baltimore), and the trail system on the Oregon Ridge in Cockeysville (20 minutes north of Baltimore) - the last of which has an excellent nature center, featuring swimming diamondback terrapins, a resident crippled red-tailed hawk, and year-round programs including maple sugar tapping in the winter.

There is something utterly life-changing about walking in the woods - an activity which was rare for me as a child of southern California.  To be among groves of giants, mighty storehouses of life, churning away at the work of converting photons of light to breathable oxygen, living through decades and centuries of human history, pushing forward millimeter by millimeter - you feel tiny, insignificant, transient, in awe of the entire situation. The leaves obscure you from the surrounding world, and the undergrowth limits your visual field to what is on the trail before you; in essence, a walk in the woods is a journey through another world, one to which you are irrevocably foreign - not the other way around. What better place for photography?

I actually only recently read Thoreau's Walden, in which he writes about his experience of and reasons for spending two years in a pond-side cabin in the woodlands of Massachusetts. As much as I found the book beautiful and deeply affecting in its own way, I couldn't help but find myself questioning Thoreau. He writes eloquently (and often, I think it fair to say, self-aggrandizingly) about self-sufficiency, simplicity,  economy of living, and fullness of life. Yet, I wondered, walking through the forests in my own life: can anyone really draw these things from the woods? How strangely petty to commune with such a magical place, and to gain mostly a philosophy for human life. However strong the philosophy, I wonder if it is quite literally missing the forest for the trees.

I also recently read Wildwood, a love letter to the woods by the late British nature writer Roger Deakin. In turns, it is about growing up, moth classifying, apple picking, wood sculpting, traveling to foreign countries, and Jaguars (as in the car). It is about every myriad way that trees and forests impacted Deakin, and how he himself is dwarfed by the entire experience. Much like when I walk in the woods around Baltimore - it is simultaneously an experience of everything and nothing at all.