Rainy Day Walks

Driving through Roxbury this morning, just as WSHU Public Radio (http://www.wshu.org/) was moving from NPR news into classical music, the rain mingling with the music became a mnemonic cue to recall many walks in the woods that only a certain breed would find pleasurable---because these slow-paced rambles were undertaken while it was raining.

I had been thinking about Roxbury in the context of walking recently, after a family hike on a crisp autumn afternoon in the signature Steep Rock Preserve, off River Road in Washington, of the Steep Rock Association (http://steeprockassoc.org/). As I have done many times before, we walked from the parking area near the riding ring along a narrow dirt road that hugs the Shepaug River and, in places, seems almost to be sliding down into the river. At a certain point you can switch off onto a flat, parallel path that is the rail bed of the former Shepaug Valley Railroad, which branched off another rail line and ran from the Hawleyville section of Newtown to the center of Litchfield. It began service in December 1871 and was finally abandoned in 1948.

The rail bed trail, one of many in the Steep Rock Preserve, including one that leads to a pinnacle offering a view of the Shepaug River's clam shell-shaped meanderings, eventually leads to a natural feature that the laborers who built the railroad turned into a dramatic man-made feature---a short, curving tunnel blasted through the rock. It's shown during the winter in the photo below, posted on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/criana/.

If you were to walk through the tunnel, and were able to continue following the railroad's former route, which you cannot after a while, eventually you would end up in the center of Roxbury, the beautiful rural town that, in addition to being home to lots of affluent and famous people, also has a very active and successful land trust. The Roxbury Land Trust (http://www.roxburylandtrust.org/) conserves 3,400 acres of land that offers some of the best hiking opportunities in the region. Helpfully, the trust's Web site has a prominent link to a map that can be downloaded to offer access to 30 miles of trails. Here's just one view of a land trust preserve, photographed by Walter Kidd.

I've never actually walked on the Roxbury Land Trust's trails; it has always been a matter of geography and scheduling. Most of the time I end up on the familiar trails of the White Memorial Foundation in Litchfield and Morris (http://www.whitememorialcc.org/). The foundation oversees approximately 4,000 acres of varied and glorious preserves, but, like many visitors, I favor a route that includes the trail around Little Pond, a trail that for much of its run consists of an elevated wooden boardwalk. I've walked here in every month of the year, and, whenever the weather, cooperates, in the rain.

There's something lonely, magical and fulfilling about the muted colors of the landscape in the rain. Another part of the appeal is having the entire preserve to yourself, but there's so much more going on that's difficult to quantify. Walking for miles under a leaden sky, amid the sound of the rain hitting the trees, leaves and forest floor is a joy, and an staying in the woods on those days until it's nearly dark is like pure liberation---a feeling that takes on a deeper and different context later at home, after a hot shower and over a glass of nice wine in the low light of happily shuttered-in evenings. And there are things you never forget: encountering eight or nine blue herons on the pond on one of those rainy afternoons, or coming around a corner on an early winter day and being face-to-face with a bobcat.

These days, I like to start with Little Pond and use it as grounding to reach a still point of reflection before moving on to trace as many other trails as time allows. Usually that involves crossing a couple of roads and edging along the Bantam River toward the main conservation center area. Here's a view from one spur path along that route, taken by Walter Kidd for a story in our November LCT magazine about the curative qualities of kayaking at White Memorial:



Following one of many possible routes takes you eventually to the edge of Bantam Lake, where a wooden platform offers wonderful views. The return trip, depending on which way you turn, leads to an encounter with a strange site---two parallel concrete walls, a few feet apart, with water in the middle, that stretch from the lake back into the woods. It looks like a canal, now being subsumed by the landscape, from some ancient, forgotten city. It's actually said to be part of a former ice house operation, which is illustrated by an exhibit in White Memorial's conservation center.

Interestingly, on the walk back toward the conservation center, you're not far from the route of the old Shepaug Valley Railroad. Where it traveled is less obvious here, and more so along one side of Little Pond, and there is an ongoing effort to reclaim the former rail bed in Litchfield as a new greenway. Someday, perhaps, hikers with a purpose will be able to walk all the way from Litchfield center to Roxbury center along the railroad's route, passing through nonpareil landscapes and that defining tunnel at Steep Rock along the way.

For now, to enjoy the under-appreciated, solitary charm of mid- to late-autumn, seek out the trails of Steep Rock, the Roxbury Land Trust and the White Memorial Foundation. What you'll find is muted and subtle, but also rich and rewarding, as in this recent photo in Roxbury by Walter Kidd,