Plenty Of Mudslinging On The Trail
Well, we’ve made it through another winter, though for snow and ice fans it was pretty pitiful – but we’re not quite out of the woods when it comes to challenging hiking conditions.
As any of us who has set foot on a trail this time of year knows, we are now in New England’s unofficial fifth season, otherwise known as mud season.
Unlike deep snow, which can be navigated with snowshoes, or thick ice, made less slippery with crampons and other traction devices, there is no easy way to get through mud.
Though it’s tempting to detour around mucky sections this is a no-no, because widened trails are more susceptible to erosion. Such conservation-minded organizations as the Appalachian Mountain Club and Green Mountain Club advise hikers to tramp through puddles rather than bushwhack on either side. Purists also discourage moving rocks to create stepping stones or cutting branches for makeshift bridges, but I must admit I may have dragged a log or two over wet sections rather than soak my boots and socks.
Many popular, well-maintained trails either skirt swamps and marshes or traverse them with puncheons – split logs – but when snow melts and spring rains arrive there’s no escaping vernal pools and other muddy stretches.
In fact, some trails simply shut down, including popular routes to two of Vermont’s most elegant peaks, Mount Mansfield and Camel’s Hump, which remain closed until Memorial Day to protect sensitive alpine vegetation.
I’ve climbed both of those 4,000-foot-plus summits several times in all conditions, including one memorable sub-zero excursion in the dead of winter, but by far the most difficult ascent was a few years ago when my son Tom and I hiked the 272-mile Long Trail from the Massachusetts-Vermont line to the Canadian border during what had been one of the rainiest, muddiest seasons ever in the Northeast.
We spent weeks slogging through knee-deep mire, and scrambled over Mansfield in a monsoon so savage the trails were more like whitewater rivers.
As bad as that was, it wasn’t my worst mud experience.
That took place during a 28-mile kayak circumnavigation of Manhattan one blazing hot day in August.
Our group launched from the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, paddled up the East River with the flood tide to Hell Gate, waited for the ebb, then proceeded west along the Harlem River to the mighty Hudson, all the while steering past cruise ships, ferries, barges, water taxis, tour boats and tankers.
As we drew even with Midtown Manhattan my foot brace came loose, and I realized I would have to get ashore to fix it.
A nice, flat section across the river in Hoboken, N.J. beckoned, and my pals dutifully joined me in the crossing.
“Wait here, guys, I’ll just step out for a minute,” I said when we reached what appeared to be solid ground.
The term mud flat doesn’t adequately describe what I encountered.
I instantly sank to my hips in greenish goo, and would have gone up to my neck if I hadn’t jammed my paddle crosswise.
For a terrifying instant I thought of those quicksand scenes in silent movies, where some poor sod slowly gets sucked deeper and deeper until only his frantically waving hands remained visible, but somehow I managed to extricate myself, flop onto a barnacle-encrusted rock and scramble back into my kayak, minus one sandal. I jabbed my paddle into the muck, fished around and voila! Miraculously, the sandal surfaced, I grabbed it, and paddled like crazy away from New Jersey.
I haven’t been back since.
It’s unlikely you’ll encounter anything like that now on the trails in New England, especially after such a snow-deprived, warm winter. Experts predict this year’s mud season, which started early, will be over in a few weeks.
They are referring, of course, to muck and mire on the forest trail.
There’s also plenty of mud being slung around on the campaign trail, but unfortunately, that variety will be around at least through November.
Comment threads are monitored for 48 hours after publication and then closed.