Cleanup Walk

Early this morning, I got out for a nice overland hike around one of the areas I was hunting this fall. I actually arrived there a little too early. The sun was just coming up when I pulled into the parking lot. When I tried to walk into the brush, I ran into an impenetrable wall of hawthorn and wild rose. I couldn't see an opening in the brambles, though I'm sure there must have been one. Not wanting to lose a pint of blood finding a path, I gave up and drove to another access point, where I found a clear trail into the woods.

Soon I found myself in some of the best looking grouse habitat I've seen locally. Probably where I should have hunted in the fall. I walked along an oak ridge for a ways, then descended into a mucky bottom area. One of the nice things about hiking in winter is that you can easily pass through wetlands where you would sink to your knees in warmer weather. I meandered around small shrubs and groves of aspen on the swamp's edge, and hopped across hummocks of marsh grass, crossing innumerable deer trails and spooking chickadees in waves.

After I climbed out of the swamp, I came across a milk crate resting against the bottom of a large oak. Someone's deer hunting lookout, left since the season ended a month ago. Hating to see litter in the woods, and figuring I could put the crate to good use, I picked it up. As I wandered around, I put other pieces of trash I found into it. I filled it when I reached a parking area strewn with styrofoam cups, snack bags, and spent shells. (Why so many spent shells right next to the road? Is that where all the birds are???). I didn't bother picking up the pair of undershorts frozen flat against the ground, or the severed deer head lying back in the brush.

I was only out a couple of hours, but it was an invigorating walk. For some reason, it felt like returning to some place I had once known well but from which I had been long absent. Not the physical place--it was more the manner in which I had come to and was immersing myself in those gray winter woods of southern Michigan. It was a habit of living I had been away from, a habit which hunting, fishing, even jogging alongside similar woods doesn't quite duplicate. One outing doesn't equal resumption of a habit, but I'm on the way.

Tag: Outdoors