Cone Mountain Pond

Dan Newton  

We’re driving down Route 49 on our way to a trail that is not on a map. It’s a unique route that begins on private lands, and then moves into the National Forest, eventually leading to a beautiful special pond: Cone Mountain Pond. The trail is off one of the several backcountry roads in the Sugar Run housing development: unmarked, no parking lot, obscured by evergreens growing thickly at the roadside’s edge. It’s been a while since I’ve been here, so I’m not sure exactly where it is… so I’m beginning to feel the silent angst of the lost guide [a tragic and sometimes weekly condition, caused by an overabundance of enthusiasm, adventure mongering, and the seductions of the many sylvan voices known to be wandering these parts of the world]. Generally, people seem to forgive me for this. Looking into the rearview mirror at the group: Lisa, Suzie, Dorothy; Mark and Roy, I see they’re geared up and talking excitedly in anticipation of the afternoon’s sojourn. I stop the bus.

Five faces look at me as if to ask, “What are you doing?”

“I must have past it,” I tell them, “because it’s not this far…”

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Tritown/Yellow Jacket Loop

Dan Newton

I’m furiously cleaning out the Subaru in preparation for today’s winter hike, and the seats are almost clean except for the most stubborn of the crumbs that burrow into the seams like small boring insects. I took out the plastic horses, army men, dolphins and assorted seas creatures, futuristic galactic fighters, food wrappers, crumpled drawings and homework assignments, books, plastic lunch containers, lunch boxes, water bottles, sneakers, a boot and a child seat, because only two people had registered for today’s hike; so we don’t need to crank up the bus and burn the big gas on a few people; but then, ten minutes to start time, walk-in hikers start appearing in pairs, proliferating like snowshoe hares, talking and laughing, popping up here and there, anxious to go a-tramping; so I jet next door to where the bus, the good old Recreation Department bus, stands still ensconced in the latest storm’s drifts, and I fire it up. Moments later, after sweeping a crust of snow off the windshield, defrost blasting a stultifying dry wind in my face, I’m gunning it out of the drift, teeth clenched, and swinging it back and up and around to the Cottage, turning in and adroitly turning around and parking near the exit. Didn’t hit a thing. I hop out. 

Everyone else hops in.

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Dan Newton

Everyone is happy because the snow is draped between rocks and tufts on the ground and clumped in the trees. It fell from the sky just a day or so ago, and the wind has been calm, the air cold. The brooks are clogged with rock-topped white windblown puffs and drifts, and the ice along the edges is cracked-white and thin; and yet, the water flows in the brooks and rills, creating a dark juxtaposition to the whiteness all around. We’re tramping up the Old Waterville Road, having parked at the turn-around beside the Six Mile Bridge. It’s warm today. The hillside to our right as we ascend is steep and long under the evergreens, and I’m explaining how it’s a great “extreme snowshoe run,” to come down off Pine Flats when there’s a lot of snow, and today, we have a lot of snow. So I’m looking for adventure, for a story about the great snowy descent from Pine Flats to Route 49! There are about eight in the group today… absolutely none of them has any interest in doing this.
“It’s like running downhill— in slow motion,” I tell them, very enthusiastically.

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