EPIC FOREST TRAILS AND OTHER POSSIBLE DISASTERS

For a while when I was a kid we lived in the woods. 

Not like in a cabin or a treehouse. We lived on three acres of woods and boulders, and we had paths through the forest that led to our friends' houses or forts or short-cuts to town. (Actually, the short-cut to town was through forbidden areas because of seasonal hunting, and I didn't discover the safer super short-cut until our last few months of living there.) We would trail-ski (not cross-country, but downhill through the woods) and sled and bicycle and run at breakneck speeds over rocks, launching airborne from log piles, and over/through/around trees.

It was epic fun.

My sister's family now lives in semi-similar conditions -- some woods, fewer rocks, occasional seasonal gunfire. They've resided there for years, and we have done our share of sledding and snowshoeing and plowing through the woods at breakneck speeds. I have been egging on my sister for a while now to create trails through the woods, perhaps even bike paths, but we've just never gotten around to it.

Until last week.

I arrive for Easter weekend, and my sister is excited to show me two paths she has made through the higher ground of her back hill. She hasn't done a bad job, if I do say so myself. Honestly, though, I am the one who was always bombing through the woods, heedless of branches, thorns, and animal dens. She has made excellent headway, but I am the Lewis-and-Clark of the family. If there's a trail to be blazed, I damn-well want to be the one spearheading it. 

I walk her trails a few times, but I do so with an eye to the deeper woods. After all, she can't be the only one having fun. I grab a steel bow rake and some Fiskars clippers then head into the lower woods. I start by clearing brush and branches both at my feet and along my body up to eye level. I loop through a mini-bog, up and over some fallen trees, and connect with my sister's handiwork. 

Or, so I think. When I try to reverse through my forged path, I realize I didn't do as handy a job as I first thought. I end up clipping my way backward, surely not quite the same way I came. Once I am back where I deposited the steel bow rake, I start hauling away fallen leaves, sticks, limbs, undergrowth, and anything else that moves. 

The positive is that I have the beginnings of a new trail. The negative is that once the leaves are removed, this path is muddy in the middle for a good seven feet. I cannot lay small limbs across it like a bridge because my sister's dog is a stick-retriever, so I haul fallen trees, instead. It makes for a dog-proof crossing, but the trees are unsteady and roll a bit, making the small mud bog more of a tightrope experience.

After a few regular rakings of the back woods, we have three mighty-fine trails connected and ready to go. I make a shortcut to connect the two upper trails closer to where the lower trail now comes in. My sister and I start eyeballing other areas where we can start trails, and, before we know it, we have ideas for look-out spaces and scenic areas right there in her backyard.

These may not be the epic trails of our childhood, but, to be honest, I'm not nearly as young as I used to be, so these shorter paths are much more my current speed. The dog and the the little kids seem to like the new trails, too. All in all, it's a win-win and will be even better when next winter comes and sledding through the trees will be safer now that some of the eye-poking sticks have been cleared.