The New Trail

... Glen taking the lid off of his fuel ...

Glen came by one Saturday morning and asked me if I had seen the new trail David Pilling has been working on.

I said I thought I had. I had walked up the west side of the Little Canadian Stream one morning.

But he was carrying his chain saw and the trail I had been on had no trees across it.

 So I hopped into Glen’s Delica and David Pilling followed on his bike.

" ... and why does this top seem to be stuck? ...
... am I just getting old arthritic fingers ..."

And that is how I came to see the work that has been done on the new trail to the Sandy Beach, a trail David Pilling, Shauna and Doobie (their dog) travel so they don’t bother others.

Glen’s chain saw began to run and soon David was behind him, throwing the logs and odd branches off to the side.

We were at the far side of property where the Shady Beach and the Sandy Beach meet. I walked quietly behind them, and we began the ascent.

... adding the fuel to the chain saw ...

“I think this spot is too steep for mountain bikes,” Glen said.

The whirr of the chain saw had stopped.

David concurred – too steep for biking.

Just one place too steep and keeping them away from making this a multiple use trail (people and people on bikes).

Some of the steps at the start of the trail seemed hard for me to take – high steps.

Then the trail began to wind back and forth, the slope was less steep and the forest remained magical with its rust and green beauty.

“Look at this old stand of Douglas fir,” said Glen with a broad stretch of his arm from east to west.

... David Pilling pulling back the brush ...

David and I lifted our heads upward for the branches were reaching the sky and only the beauty of the boles of the trees were straight in front of us, for we couldn’t see that high beauty unless we threw our heads way back.

I reached out to touch someone for stability.

The sun dappled on the barks of the trees.

“There is a lot of money in this stand,” Glen said. “I hope we never take the cash out of this forest,” he went on. David and I nodded our heads, quiet in the graceful beauty around us.

All three of us continued up the path which winds around trees that have had their branches woven back onto each other last year and now those branches still live, encircle each other while the three of us pass by.

There is a small wishing well feature at the top of the climb.

“Where did that come from?” questioned Glen.

"Oh it was in the landfill, and when I saw it I just backed my truck up,” replied David.

... stepping up into the forest,
the first arched branch overhead that will be cut ...

“You could take some moss that has some twinflower vines in it and get them trailing along it if you would just put it here and here,” Glen said, gesturing to the inside of the well.

As we walked along we saw where some of the forest is littered where in the past a family used that spot as their shooting gallery. “I wonder if they are going to come back and clean this up,” Glen said.

 “I will bring a garbage bag and do it next time I am here,” I said, adding, “for others.”

“Wait a bit and give them a chance to work on having the forest look natural again,” he replied. So we left that gift to them – believing as I do that cleaning up after myself is a gift.

Arta