#66 Encounter Along the South Fork Moormans River

November 22, 2007

I cannot hear the stream below me on the left as I ascend the fire road along the South Fork of the Moorman’s River above Sugar Hollow Reservoir. The only sound I hear is the rush of wind funneling briskly down its own course of this steep valley in the Rivanna headwaters. And my own foot noise, in spite of my effort to walk quietly up the path strewn with leaves. Occasionally, my eyes search the hillside, looking for movement. There were only two cars in the parking area, so I imagine privacy and maybe, if I am lucky, some wildlife. But leaves continue to fall with abandon everywhere, camouflaging any living thing, except myself.

It’s a steep climb at first, but as the hillside flattens along the trail, I cut off the path and approach the water through a stand of young hemlock and flowering witch hazel. I scramble down to a moss-covered boulder with a view of a shallow pool that is fed from upstream around the bend and which disappears downstream over a small riffle. I sit, letting the sound of water over rock join the wind rush and the wood creak making harmonies in the moving air. I strain to discern what is not the sound of rock, air and water, feeling hopelessly human with an unpracticed perception and limited audio hearing range. I hear nothing and everything in the water: the faint sound of mewing, as I imagine the cougar cubs I long to see. The sound of human voices, but when I look behind me on the trail, I see nothing. The clap of iron upon wood, like a hammer. All imagined. I lean back, my knees draped over the rock, the sun warming me through ever thinning leaves. I descend into sleep.

An unfamiliar sound alerts me, and I sit up and scan the stream. From around the downstream bend, with the slow tempo of dreamscape, a man comes in to view. He is walking the streambed, carefully picking his way from rock to rock. He is older, his rock-hop more of a step-by-step assessment as he approaches where I am sitting. His head is down, and I am not sure if he has spotted me.

I have only a moment to make my decision, but that’s all I need. I drop my eyes and still my body. I am in plain view as he approaches from thirty feet away, but I have decided to be part of the scenery. Every once in a while out of the corner of my eye, I check to see where he is. It appears, by the path that he takes, that he has seen me and is steering respectfully clear. Only when I cannot see or hear him anymore, do I arise and walk carefully through the under story towards the trail, pausing to answer the call of nature, making my own mark in private, I hope.

I walk slowly downhill, savoring yellow leaves against blue sky. I enter a patch of air scented with animal, fresh as water and pure in its rankness. At my feet is a small deposit of dark and berry-filled scat. Down the trail, the air returns to “normal” but in another 500 yards, the same thing happens: the unmistakable smell of wild. I wonder if I am being watched by an animal, folded still into the hillside above me.

When I return to the parking area, the two cars I’d seen are gone and are replaced by a new one that belongs, presumably, to the man I had seen. It was a chance encounter, not the one I had hoped for, but I learned some things about making my own path through the woods. Listen to the water: you will hear what is necessary. Be still as a rock, for your privacy and solace lie within. Step gently on the leaves and know that you are not alone in the woods.