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Canoerebel -> RE: The Good The Bad & The Indifferent (6/24/2016 2:21:33 PM)
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The timing couldn't have been better calculated to mess with my mind. When that exchange began (Purple prose! Purple prose!) I was working on a short story about my Summer Solstice Eve hike under the full moon. I was trying to write descriptively. That means I there was a risk of veering into purple prose. Loka's mention of it led me to read more about it. Then I had to rework the story a bit. But it's hard for a writer to self-diagnose. Here's the latest draft of the story:
Along the Backroads
27 Miles from Nowhere
In the afterglow of spring’s final sunset, I did something unexpected. I began a six-mile hike on Chickamauga Creek Trail, a seldom-used path in a peaceful fold of the northwest Georgia mountains. I always hike in daylight, so this was a marked departure from my Sunday evening routine.
The idea was to experience the trail under a full moon on the eve of the summer solstice. At first, diminishing light from sunset and a ghostly glow from the rising moon filtered weakly through the forest canopy, lighting the way. A mile later, the trail dipped into a narrow gorge where Taylors Ridge and Dick Ridge pinch together. There light wouldn’t reach the forest floor until the moon climbed high in the eastern sky and cleared the looming bulk of Dick Ridge, sometime after midnight.
Near-total darkness enveloped the trail as it snaked through the gorge. The lingering songs of the daytime birds ceased. Cicadas stopped droning. Horseflies went wherever horseflies go at night. And then the magic began.
Magic was what I had come to see, but was it still showing? I was unsure. My family and I had camped at this same place in June 2006, but early in the month. At sunset, a choir of whippoorwills had performed a whistled concerto. Fireflies handled the lighting in a show that stands out in our memories as never again equaled. It was as if a masterful exterior decorator had wreathed the dark mountainside in miles of hopelessly tangled Christmas tree lights, all of them winking cheerfully.
Was this summer’s solstice too late in the season to catch the firefly show?
I found out just minutes later. As I carefully stepped among rocks and roots scarcely visible in the gloaming, white lights began twinkling on and off, on and off. The show had opened, so I stopped beside a beech tree to watch. As more and more living lights joined in, some seemed to dance down the mountainside, like sparks of elven fire poured from enchanted cauldrons. Then a barred owl took its cue, voicing a resounding “Haw!” Each “Haw!” echoed hauntingly between the mountains, trailing away until succeeded by the next.
My family claims that Chickamauga Creek Trail is 27 Miles from Nowhere, a reference to its remoteness and distance from our house. Until this year, I’d never encountered another hiker in 20 years of walking the six mile loop. But on consecutive Saturdays in April, I met several groups of backpackers. I figured that finally word was out about this secluded trail. It doesn’t lead to waterfalls or spectacular views (except in winter), but it is ideal for those who enjoy stretching their legs in a picturesque, tranquil forest of hardwood and pine.
Instead of views from lofty crags, blessed silence is the outstanding feature of Chickamauga Creek Trail. I should clarify that by any reasonable standard, “silence” allows for sounds like thunder, wind, owls hooting, cicadas droning, katydids sawing, coyotes howling, and snatches of cordial conversation with those who have wandered far from the highway solely by foot.
Georgia novelist Eugenia Price was a seeker of silence. The best-selling author of Beloved Invader and many other novels set in our state wrote longingly in At Home on St. Simons Island of her search for a few moments of peace in an increasingly noisy world. Thanks to motorboats, aircraft, lawn mowers, power saws and telephones, she despairingly counted her successes in intervals of seconds or minutes.
Since Price’s death in 1996, the search for silence has become even more challenging. Over the past 20 years, we’ve endured a proliferation of atrocities like the leaf blower and the car alarm, not to mention the cell phone, which makes noise portable and raises the decibel level of conversation. Clamor is ubiquitous, so those who cherish tranquility are forced to seek refuge in soundproof bunkers or in our ever-shrinking wild places.
By disposition, some hikers are reluctant to let go of civilization for even a few hours. You might encounter them on the trail, carrying mechanical noisemakers that provide music (as if birdsong wasn’t sufficient) or a direct link to home and office. To them, tranquility is an obstacle to vanquish with dispatch. They must be extroverts.
The rest of us search for tranquility diligently because it’s essential to our pursuit of happiness. We must be introverts. Chickamauga Creek Trail is perfect for introverts. Intervals of silence there last for hours and sometimes even days.
Nighttime is undoubtedly the optimal time to find tranquility on the trail, as long as the hiker doesn’t mind dark shadows, the scurryings and skitterings of nocturnal critters on the forest floor, and the occasional “Haw!” On that Summer Solstice Eve hike, I didn’t see another soul. Nor did I expect to, since there weren’t any vehicles parked at the trailhead.
After admiring the fireflies for ten minutes, I moved on. The footing became more precarious when I entered the deeper shadows at the base of Dick Ridge, on the side of the ridge shaded from the moon. I clicked on my headlamp and continued across a narrow shelf twenty feet above East Chickamauga Creek.
Then the trail began its steep ascent of the ridge. As I climbed higher and higher, the fireflies thinned, katydids began sawing, a refreshing summer breeze tickled the heights, and the full moon burst into view when I finally reached the crest.
The remainder of the hike was ideally suited for an introvert since moonlight illuminated most of the descent. Walking was easy. My thoughts turned to memories of more than two decades of hiking there. I recalled my first visit in company with my wife, who was expecting our first child. Half-a-dozen years later, we brought our three youngsters along for a lovely autumn hike. Then there was that overnight family camping trip on the Night of the Fireflies in 2006. On that occasion, we carved our initials in a beech tree. Each time I return to the trail, I stop at that tree and marvel at the passage of time.
I’ve made a dozen pilgrimages to the trail this year, mostly to photograph wildflowers. But there’s also the lure of tranquility. On Chickamauga Creek Trail, quiet interludes are always measured in hours.
I wonder. What will the trail be like under the full moon nearest the winter solstice?
Directions: For those who wish to get away from it all, Chickamauga Creek Trail is located at the end of Forest Service Road 219, roughly six miles northwest of Villanow in Walker County. The trail is moderately difficult, somewhat poorly marked, and located in a remote and isolated area. The ability to use a topographic map of the area is recommended.
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