While You Were Sleeping

Hey everybody, I'm having one of those days when everything seems well with the world. I woke up early to meet up with some folks for a run (I promise I'm gonna talk about something different) and was damn close to bagging it. Knowing I'd have to feed my addiction at some point today I just sucked it up and got outta bed. It was about 273 Kelvin above absolute zero this morning, so I had to get mildly bundled up. It's a tricky temperature where you're right on the line of too hot and too cold. Anywho, let me tell some things I saw while most of y'all were probably sleeping.

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Lost in the Wilderness

As usual, we got lost in the woods because our leader had bagged the run in trade for an earlier run. We headed up into the trails only to still not be able to find the trail we were looking for. While lost, we came across some of the most unnatural landmarks of the woods behind Kirvin Park. I could never find them if I wanted to, so it was kind of fun to stumble upon all of them on one morning.

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Is This a God Dam?

Just off the beaten path on the way up to one of Pittsfield's water reservoirs is waterfall created by a man made dam. I have been in the vicinity of this dam on probably half a dozen occasions and this is the first time I saw it. I can see myself taking a dip next summer, the pool beneath the waterfall looks wicked inviting.

After standing around pondering the dam, its waterfall, the pool beneath it, and what people must have used it for in the past, we started back up the mountain. At the top of the dam there was an interesting sight: a dam. Apparently Pittsfield's forefathers weren't the only ones to find this to be the perfect spot for a dam, because a clan of beavers had set up shop at one point or another.

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Leaving it All Behind

Local lore tells us that one day a guy just had enough with society and left to live in the woods. He built himself a log cabin and spent the rest of his days living communally with the animals. He's since passed away, but his cabin is still there, complete with a sign asking visitors to "Please Treat this Cabin with RESPECT". My guess is that he put up the sign while he still lived there to keep passersby from jacking up his pad.

The cabin has since fallen into disrepair and the roof is riddled with bullet holes, the obvious victim of a showdown between the cabin and a disrespectful gunslinger. I'm not sure how long he lived there, but from what I understand he was a harmless recluse.

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It Does a Body Good

Another manmade landmark of the trails out behind Kirvin Park is the carcass of a milk truck of yore. All that's left of the milk truck is its exoskeleton, engine and drivetrain. When you come up on the truck, it catches you offguard because it's sitting in the middle of the woods surrounded on all sides by trees. It's another reminder that these woods were once used for farmland.

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Speaking of Farmland

As we were reaching the conclusion of the trip, we were standing around trying to decide which trail would get us home the easiest. Looking around, I noticed something I hadn't seen before: a stone wall. The woods of New England are full of stone walls, the only remaining evidence of the farming history of the area.

You could see that the farmers had cleared the land of large rocks, arranging them into walls outlining their fields. The fields have long since been abandoned and have been reborn as a dense forest of young, spindly trees. The only trees larger than a few inches are found to be in a straight line along the field stone walls. Those must have been left standing when the farmers cleared the land.

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The Woods are On Fire

The last visual I have from the route is of a field of burning red brush against a barren autumn backdrop. I had to stop and take it all in; it's one of those views nature gives you for about 2 days out of the year before it extinguishes the brush and turns the landscape brown until the snow flies.

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So there you have it. While most of the city was asleep I ducked out its backdoor into the woods and took advantage of some of what New England has to offer. It's amazing to see that mere steps from my neighborhood is a wooded wonderland full of little treasures. Ahhh.

Over and Out,
Old Coot