Place Entry #1: Reintroducing Myself to Clark Reservation

Friday, January, 21st
2:53 PM
19° (according to weather.com, it felt like 2° with the wind)

I dressed in several layers in preparation for heading out to Clark Reservation, a spot I visited once in September. I had found myself acquainted with bustling critters, orange and red leaves, and calm, lapping lake waters. Winter transformed the park, and it was time to reintroduce myself. After pushing my pants into my snow boots, I stepped out of my car and onto the trail. My car was the only vehicle in the parking lot, which had been recently cleared by a plow. The hiking trail I picked sent me up the rocky terrain to a cliff that overlooked the lake. I looked down upon a white, sleek disc. 

Despite my layers, the wind had me shivering quickly. I didn't see any shoe prints from other hikers as I tried to guess where the trail led. The terrain is full of boulders; the trail consists of large rocks with deep cracks. As I climbed over boulders, I hoped I wouldn't slip in a crack hidden under the blanket of snow. The wind cracked and groaned through the leafless trees. A few leaves, crispy and curled, hung on and rattled as the wind swirled through the crooked branches. The pines, a touch of green in a white and brown world, swayed. While the wind blew, I only heard the gusts and rattles. My nose stung from the freezing wind, and when I tried to catch a scent, I only breathed in icy air. The air seemed to freeze my senses until everything was one: frozen, numbing, stinging. 

I decided to keep moving to stay warm. I carefully found footing up another set of boulders. 

At the top, I found some animal tracks and several little burrows, deep holes dug into the earth. I crouched down and wondered what small creature was struggling to survive through the winter. Perhaps it wasn't struggling at all. I was struggling. My fingers throbbed under my mittens. As I followed the tracks, I found a whole network of burrows. I guessed the prints were left by rabbits, since the prints fell in a straight line; the creature must have been hopping from one spot to the next. 

I looked behind me at the rows of prints. Though I had walked carefully, my bulky footsteps had marred the scene. The snow looked chopped where I had walked between the burrows. In front of me, the white landscape gleamed pure, nature without a trace of human. The snow seemed to forgive the years of trampling and ruination humans had given the land, even this land, a state park more preserved than most. I decided to halt my forward progress. My boots had already turned up the ground around the "rabbit" community. Their prints left soft trails that barely pressed into the snow. Their prints were soft. 

I turned back and felt the ground give away under my boot. My entire leg slipped through a crack between two rocks. While one leg dangled in air, my other leg lay submerged in snow. The white fluff found its way into my gloves and coated my fingers. By the time I stopped laughing and pulled myself out of the crack, nature had defeated me. I retreated faster as my wet skin helped the numbness spread through my jaw and cheeks. I left the rabbit holes and saw snowflakes, soft and round, drifting lazily toward the ground. A snowstorm is expected tonight, and I know my boot marks will get covered, frosted in yet another forgiving layer of white.