Devil's Maw / Wood Nymph / Rainbow Explosion

It was a day so crammed full of adventure and misadventure that it practically needed its own miniseries. It started with frozen bubbles in the yard, using the two new decorative fans I bought the day before, and ended up in the sunny hills and icy hollows of Sproul State Forest. In the middle part, it was so full of misery that it needed its own Patrick F. McManus book. But let me start at the beginning.

My husband and I decided that with the good weather, we were heading for Sproul State Forest. The question mark was whether we should go on our first backpack of the year, or simply day hike. In the end, we decided to day hike, which turned out to be the RIGHT decision.

We planned to drive to Sproul, park in a parking lot along the road, and hike in to check out conditions at our campsite known as Pine Glen. It's a short, easy hike into the site. There's a pond nearby we sometimes walk to. There's no water to navigate, no hills to climb. I decided to wear what I call my three-miler, my Lady Garmont hiker.

So we made some ham and cheese bagel sandwiches, packed up our daysacks and chairs and a cooler, and drove to Sproul. Conditions down here in the State College area are clear. We have not had snow on the ground in over a week. The roads are fine.

However, conditions we encountered a bit further north at higher elevations were very different. As we got to Sproul, we saw piles of snow along the road left by the plows. Yikes. We hoped our parking lot was plowed. Guess what. It WASN'T. 

The parking lot featured completely untouched snow, and drifts a foot and a half to two feet high, and the road back in was completely impassable. ACCESS DENIED!!! Glad we weren't planning to backpack, because guess what: you can't GET there from here!

So we did a three-point turnaround in the road and backtracked ten miles to a spot with a plowed parking lot and woods we wanted to hike in. We pulled the car in, got our gear out, ate our bagel sandwiches with potato chips in the parking lot.

Suddenly, the story had changed. I was NOT going on a flat, easy, water-free, short hike. We were heading into the deep woods, up and down the hills, in and out of the dark and icy hollows.

I knew it instantly but was afraid to admit it: the boot I'd picked was the wrong one for these conditions. It wasn't high enough, or tough enough, for what we were about to do. 

There's also this. Back in late November, I hurt my right knee and had to use a cane for a week to walk. That got somewhat better, but the bottom of my right foot has hurt ever since. Every other step hurts.

So I've been walking more slowly, and walking shorter distances. I wouldn't say I'm still limping, but I've been mincing my steps, trying to accommodate for the right foot hurting and my right knee not being up to full power. I can't push off with it; I can't safely land on it. Rock leaping is not my current forte.

And so, of course, on the first stream crossing, I went in over my left boot and got a soaking wet foot! Shortly after that, we did another stream crossing, and the water came in through the laces on my right shoe. TWO wet feet! Things weren't looking so great.

We found a sunny spot to sit in our chairs for a couple of hours, and I took my shoes off, took off my soaked socks, and my husband hung them in a tree. I put my gloves on my feet to keep them warm. "This is gonna make a GREAT story," I said to my husband, cheerily, waving my gloved feet around; "There's plenty of suffering in it, and it's ALL MINE!"

The ice formations along the creek were just spectacular. For there are shady hollows (or hollers, as it is actually SAID) where the sun never melts the ice, even on the sunniest of days. Above is one I captured shortly after the wet-foot incident. It looked like the devil's maw to me, or maybe the devil's dentures (does maw sound better?).

Since I'd had some trouble with the creek crossings on the way down, on our way back up and out, we went a different way so I didn't have to cross again. This meant bushwhacking through some heavy vegetation and trees. I felt the bushes scraping me, whapping me in the face. Scrambled through.

Up and out, up the hill into the sunshine, where we sat in our chairs. Our stuffed animals (husband: "Change that to companion animals; you don't want to INSULT them!") lined up on a log nearby, having quite the adventure. Even the tiny anteater, so brave on his first trip to the big woods.

Finally, the big part of the hike was behind us, on what would turn out to be about a five-mile day. (I have not done more than three miles since late November, so this was quite an accomplishment for me, and I was EXHAUSTED.) We were sitting in the sun, but I noticed my lower lip felt funny. Got out a mirror: all swelled up! 

"Does my lower lip look fat to you?" I turned and asked my husband. "Fatter than usual?" he joked. (Yes, I do have naturally fat lips, and in fact, there was a boy who liked me in high school who called me simply: "Lips.") Apparently, I somehow got punched in the lip while bushwhacking. "Even more misery," I said jauntily; "This is going to make a GREAT story!"

I checked out the ice at a nearby frozen vernal pond, and encountered the ice abstract/image I've included in the extras, which I have decided to call, "Self-portrait of the artist as wood nymph." The circle is my head. The body (in a dress) is below. I see a shoe bottom left. My arms are raised like tree limbs, my hair all 80s, big and wild. And I have thrown my head back and I am DANCING!!! I am dancing in spite of it all!!!

We packed it up and hiked back out to the car as the shadows grew long. It would be about an hour's drive to home, and it went quickly. After five miles in the woods, and some serious misadventure, I was ready to sit down in the car and relax; I was WAY READY to go home!

So we got back to our house and I changed my clothes and I washed my face and tidied up. And I discovered, to my chagrin, that I was itchy. Both of my armpits and both of my ankles were itchy and had a red rash forming. "Does this look like an allergic reaction to you?" I asked my husband. And we agreed that it might be.

My big sister Barb had guinea pigs when we kids were small, and I often had an allergic reaction to either the guinea pigs or more likely the wood chips she kept them in. My wrists, interior of the elbows, and behind my knees would get itchy and red. This reaction felt like that. So we put cortisone on it, and that seemed to help.

"Went into the BIG WOODs today," my husband said, smiling sardonically. "The BIG WOODS kicked my ass today," I observed. And it was true. Oh, going to the woods is a fine and pleasant misery, as Patrick F. McManus has observed. So here is the tale of my big misadventure in the woods of Sproul. 

Status: the water in the creeks soaked both my feet, those boots are now on the sh*t list, clearly it's not backpacking time yet in Sproul, something in the woods punched me in the mouth pretty good (don't know what I did but I'm sure I deserved it!), and I had an allergic reaction - I presume to some vegetation I crawled through, or something in the vegetation that bit me, who knows. But what a tale I have to tell!

Oh, and the final image. . . .those are some of my bubbles from the morning, featuring an osteospermum bloom and a new decorative fan from the Dollar Tree. My bubble broke and it looked like a rainbow exploded, and I thought that was pretty cool. So here's one last image for this day!

I've got three photos, so here are three songs: first, for the devil's maw, I've got the Rolling Stones, with Sympathy for the Devil. Second, for the self-portrait of the artist as wood nymph, I've got Steppenwolf, with Born to be Wild. And for my rainbow explosion, I've got Kacey Musgraves, with Rainbow.

Addendum: husband had a brand new all-leather Vibram/Gore-Tex backpacking boot, hand-made in Italy, and his feet were warm and dry and comfortable all day. He said that sometimes he felt like he was FLOATING on the trail. And of course, he reminded me of this all afternoon, as we hiked up and down the hills. He had a great big smile on his face; happy as a lark! Well, goody gum-drops for HIM!