Place Entry #6: Winter's Gift

Sunday, March 20th
2:42 PM
46°


In Sacramento, spring fades into summer before people flock to the parks with picnic lunches. People don't wait that long in Syracuse. The parking lot was packed today at Clark Reservation. There were only a few spots left. People sat at the wooden tables near the trail entrances and barbecued. The smoke rose in gray pillars into the blue sky. There was a large group of kids going on a guided hike through the park. Families clogged Cliff Trail with kids and dogs. Laughter, shouting, and barking filled the air. Because of all the human activity and noise, I decided to leave Cliff Trail and plug my ears. I focused on sights.

The snow was almost gone. Suddenly, everything seemed sharp and distinct. Snow no longer blurred the boundaries between trails and trees. I followed Table Rock Trail and sat down on one of the large boulders and looked at my surroundings.

The grasses were a mixture of brown and faded green; they lay flattened against the earth from the months of holding heavy snow. The trees stood like ghostly shadows beyond the trail of boulders. The stones were lumpy with small grooves covering their surfaces. In the grooves, collections of twigs, leaves, and tiny stones clumped together. The rocky surfaces were colored in varying shades of gray. My eyes were drawn to the splatters of green moss. The green, in its brightness, looked neon in comparison to the darker shades surrounding it.

As a kid, I thought of nature in simple colors. Trees had brown trunks and green leaves. Boulders were gray. The sky was blue. If you really pay attention, you discover there is nothing simple about the colors of nature. The boulders alone were a patchwork of color, and each color had many shades. 

Before I ended my visual experience, I walked up a hill in the parking lot that opened to a large clearing with more picnic tables. I hadn't noticed it before due to the snow. Dried seed pods rested on the flat grass like dead eels. I cracked one of the brittle shells open to find the small, brown seeds still in place. I sat on the grass. The ground was warm, and I imagined it sucking up as much sunlight as possible. A gray squirrel darted across the clearing. Though I've seen many squirrels in the past week, this was the first time I had seen an animal (except birds) at Clark Reservation. It felt wonderful to sit on the warm grassy ground. I've  heard Syracuse typically gets another big snow shower in late March. That still may happen, but spring is certainly coming. I'm embracing it. I've never before paid so much attention to spring's life and details. Winter has given me a gift to see. The snow, which covered the park and unified it, has granted me the ability to now appreciate the individuality of each part of the reservation. 

I was about to leave when I met a man named Brett Mosier. He's a naturalist who gives hiking tours at the park; he had been leading the group of kids I had seen upon arriving. He gave me his e-mail address, so I could meet up with him next weekend. I'm excited for the new resource. Before I left, he told me I should look at the stump of a Sugar Maple that was recently cut down. He informed me it took 40 gallons of the Sugar Maple's sweet sap to make one gallon of syrup. The stump was right at the start of Cliff Trail. The sap covered the top of the stump. It looked like a thin layer of water.  I quickly realized this was no longer going to be a day focused just on the visual sense. I covered my finger in the liquid and tasted it. The sweetness was subtle, yet as I left the park, it lingered.