A Chorus of One

All of us have voices inside our heads.

No, they are not the random ravings of lunatics. Rather, these phantoms exist in conflicting currents of a million fleeting thoughts silently surging through the canyons of the cerebellum.

Like clouds in the unsettled skies of late, these voices sometimes mount and grow in intensity as they jostle for pre-eminence.

At times, they gather into squalls, leaving blue sky but a memory’s memory and gray curtains of rain to rule the mind’s sky.

Most of the time we are not conscious of these voices. At other times they blare unmistakably into our psyche like the cacophony of a rapidly spinning radio dial.

Into this cauldron we pour pressures from work, financial concerns, family worries, and the skeletons of unmet obligations, which for the umpteenth time have been added to the list of diversions at Club Procrastination.

Memory, too, seethes here, both our own and those of souls no longer with us, preserved at least for one more lifetime in a heritage of the heart.

On top of this concoction we sprinkle more mundane day-to-day concerns. Each interruption, each diversion, each matter demanding yet another splinter of our time and attention takes us still further away from the center.

Under such an assault, our own inner voice gets buried, overwhelmed, and overloaded, smothered beneath an almost impenetrable layer of synaptic detritus.

It is in search of a respite from this chorus of many voices that I am drawn to the wilderness.

On Sunday, I loaded up the daypack for a climb up Penobscot Mountain. From the parking lot at the end of Jordan Pond, the cliffs stood in stark relief in the bright morning sun. To the northeast, billowing clouds gathered.

A mile or two of nearly deserted carriage road provided quick access to the gnarled-root steps of the Deer Brook Trail.

There, with a cool breeze at my back, I began my assent in earnest.

Along the way, surrounded by damp, moss-covered boulders, the rhythm and meter of steady step and heartbeat grew ever stronger.

The top was deserted save a lone cairn of stones and a signpost slightly tipped, bowing in deference toward a higher summit to the north.

Overhead, thickening clouds dropped lower, seemingly intent on scraping the mountain’s spine with their ragged bottoms.

Still, the sun managed to find breaks in the cover. It danced quickly over the bare granite ledges, across clumps of blueberries to disappear over the edge of a nearby precipice, only to materialize again on the sides and tops of distant peaks.

It was at that place that I realized the other voices were gone. But I knew that they were not truly silenced. That is not possible or even desirable.

To stifle them is to silence what make us who we are.

On that summit beneath a chaos of clouds, I realized I had come to the wild, hoping that the solitude there would drown out the many voices. What I was given instead was the gift to hear but one more, clearly.

If a Leaf Falls

“If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?”

The response to that age-old question reveals more about the ponderer’s powers of observation and intuitive thought than it does any real contemplation of some heretofore unknown and mysterious law of nature.

I have always been one to argue yes. I have never embraced the  quantum event school of thought that posits the mere presence or absence of someone can affect the outcome of what most people consider truly random events and coincidences. Half a million people at the original Woodstock chanted “no rain, no rain, no rain” in unison and with feeling and together shared a good soaking. I rest my case.

That is not to say that I do not believe there are sometimes signals waiting to be read in what some may see only as common everyday occurrences. That is something altogether different. And again, it is often the way that people react to and interpret those signs, more than the medium, that holds the real message. One man’s superstitious fear is often another’s epiphany. Coincidences, when viewed over time do form patterns readily apparent to those perceptive enough to see — showing in those cases that they were anything but true random rolls of fate’s dice to begin with.

But enough about falling trees. What about falling leaves? It is, after all, that time of year.

On a backpacking trip to northern Baxter State Park last week the woods were in full autumn splendor. With each passing breeze another squadron of brilliant airfoils took flight for the all-too-brief descent and their inevitable consignment to detritus duty.

For two days a friend and I hiked through mile after mile of vivid yellow mountain maple trees. You literally could not see the forest for the leaves. Our eyes grew weary from the monocolor landscape. The ground, too, was covered in yellow, punctuated only here and there by the occasional splash of red maple or the distinctive points of the poplar’s sculpted castoffs.

On Sunday, while descending from a scramble to the Horse Mountain Fire Tower I mentioned to my companion that I had never followed one leaf on its entire journey although I have many times enjoyed their antics. I have been fascinated by the frantic dance of dry leaves whipped into mini tornados, or occasional showers of leaves descending like technicolor rain following strong gusts. Once or twice I’ve witnessed a single leaf’s surrender as a north wind tugged it from its branch. So, too, have I witnessed one of fall’s solitary travelers alight gently on the frosty ground after a graceful see-sawing flight on a still morning. Still, despite my familiarity with all the pieces of the picture, I admit to having never seen it in its entirety. All too often we simply pass unawares through the day, our thoughts preoccupied with weighty matters of personal or professional interest while the rhythms and essence of life beat on around us loud, steady, yet unheard.

I got laughing to myself thinking, “If leaf falls and no one is there to see it, does it hit the ground?”

Not long after, on a brief rest stop, I glanced 30 feet overhead and off to one side just in time to see a lone, large mountain maple leaf at the exact moment it cleaved from the branch. “There’s one now,” I said out loud as I stood motionless and watched its downward spiral. About 10 feet off the ground it stopped spinning and began floating gently from side to side. With a last, wide lunging swoop it headed straight for me and alighted in my outstretched hand held flush against my chest.

Silent, I held it gently in my hand for a moment as the look of surprise slowly left my face. I turned it over and then back looking for some hidden words of wisdom in the weathered veins and leathery skin. But it was just another leaf.

I thought in that second that perhaps I should keep it as some kind of talisman. Surely the odds proved this was no accident. But I realized the magic here lay in the moment, not the object.

I smiled at my companion, and without hesitation unceremoniously released that mountain maple leaf to continue the last few feet of its preordained trip to earth – its elements soon to be one again with the soil. I looked down, at a hundred thousand identical bright yellow mountain maple leaves lying at my feet, mine now, as it should be, indistinguishable from the rest.

After all, I said to myself as I turned back to the trail and continued down the mountain, it had to have been just a coincidence.

For the Want of a Nail

By all descriptions an experienced and fit hiker, Jeff Rubin, 53, of Newton, Mass. dreamed of climbing the 100 highest peaks in New England. Lost in the near impenetrable Klondike region of Baxter State Park June 3, he died just one short of that goal.

Officially the cause of death was listed as drowning. According to park superintendent Buzz Caverly, Mr. Rubin apparently slipped on an algae-covered rock in a stream and fell, landing face down, stunned, in shallow water.

“The area is a true wilderness with massive beauty but it is an unforgiving place,” the superintendent said several days after the accident.

To learn something from Mr. Rubin’s demise we have to go back hours before and peer beyond the ruggedness of the terrain or severity of climactic conditions to a series of decisions that combined to bring him inexorably to his last rendezvous with fate.

In examining the technological detritus of catastrophes such as airplane crashes, investigators try to piece together a critical path, a sometimes linear series of often minor miscues that together can conspire to bring down even the safest airliner. They look for, in effect, the modern version of the old saw, “For the want of a nail a shoe was lost. For the want of a shoe, a horse was lost….” etc., etc.

Jeff Rubin and a companion started on the trail to the top of 4,143-foot tall North Brother Mountain west of Katahdin about 7 a.m. They reached the top three hours later. Tired and soaked from steady rain, his companion wisely elected to return to the trailhead.

Through breaks in the dense fog, Mr. Rubin, who had already climbed North Brother previously, could probably see his 100th peak, Fort Mountain to the north. It lay about a mile away on an unmapped but recognizable trail. Mr. Rubin told his companion when they parted he would meet him at the car. Faced with a 650-foot descent and an 200-foot scramble up Fort, he expected to be about two hours making the round-trip traverse.

Hours later when he did not return, rangers were notified. Searchers found his backpack containing some food, a cellular phone and some climbing protection gear propped against a post on North Brother.

A helicopter crew spotted his rain jacket Sunday morning. A ground searcher discovered the body about 75 feet away.

Stressing that no one will ever know for sure, Buzz Caverly said rangers theorize Mr. Rubin, who it was reported had suffered dizzy spells and loss of consciousness while hiking before, never made it all the way across to Fort Mountain. Leaving the pack behind may have been done to make it easier to traverse the rugged, thick wilderness. Or it could be a sign that the victim was early on suffering from the first stages of hypothermia characterized by unclear thinking and confusion.

From his bruises, rangers believe Jeff Rubin slipped and fell frequently. He was severely scraped and cut by the gnarled vegetation as he descended in the rain and fog and growing darkness down “near vertical terrain,” Mr. Caverly said. Getting to a relatively flat spot, he spread his raincoat over a bush, perhaps to signal air searchers. Just a few yards away lay the branch of Wassataquoik Stream where he died.

In reviewing Jeff Rubin’s critical path, some bending of accepted tenets of wilderness travel which at first glance seem minor and manageable, emerge. Most were probably something Jeff Rubin, or for that matter, hundreds of experienced outdoors people have done casually many, many times before.

In his battle of man against mountain, Jeff Rubin won 99 times. Several times he had to have hiked in the rain, or lost the marked trail yet suffered little harm. He had probably even been able to come back from being mildly hypothermic on previous excursions.

From time to time he may have split up from a companion with both getting back all right. Maybe he had bushwacked without gear, and like all hikers he had undoubtedly survived numerous spills on algae-covered rocks. But on June 3, a combination of by now familiar insults took its toll.

The one decision that would have made it all academic was never made. Along with his abandoned pack, Jeff Rubin apparently left behind his willingness to call it a day when the unforgiving forces of nature railed against him. Perhaps the voice he should have listened to was drowned out by the Siren’s song of that last, unconquered peak looming so tantalizingly close through the mist.

Not listening for that voice, though, was the key miscue and set in motion events that later left him stumbling alone down a dark, damp untracked mountainside to his final, fatal step.

Buzz Caverly, speaking with a homespun wisdom typical of the late Gov. Percival Baxter himself, perhaps best sums it up.

“We are talking about Maine’s most rugged terrain…. In this situation we are humbled that we are mere visitors to the land, and that no one conquers mountains.”

Orion Descending

Spring officially arrived around 3:30 p.m., Sunday. With a chill wind blowing from the northwest and high clouds overhead, you can’t blame a lot of people for not noticing.

Still, the intensity of Monday’s sunlight brought hope that at last there just might be some warmer days ahead. And, the depth of ice covering area ponds and lakes not withstanding, I discovered another sign of renewal, as well.

I recall a time last October when the first clear, sharp autumn nights rekindled ancient apprehensions of the dark months ahead. Low in the east, late, late at night, I watched the the constellation Orion trace an arc above the dark silhouette of Cadillac Mountain. The stars of Orion’s outstretched arms signaled a hurrah for the coming cold.

Orion’s prominence produced a flood of silent thoughts.

Would this winter be a long one? Would the oil and wood hold out? Would everyone make it through mentally, physically, and financially unscathed? Who would still be here and be strong come spring? And, sadly, who might not?

Through November, as the cold completed its conquest and refused to budge from the land, Orion rose earlier and earlier each night until it came to dominate winter’s vault of stars.

Through January and February, Orion watched silently from straight above. Here was a winter that equalled in fact those of fancy — a winter whose severity was finally akin to those inflated over years of retelling.

There was snow aplenty — 16 storms’ worth. Lakes lay entombed in thick, unyielding ice. All living things shivered through bone-numbing, sub-zero, tree-snapping cold for days and days at a stretch.

Soon, only one question remained. When will spring finally arrive?

Outside on Sunday evening, the first official dusk of spring, cold still  nipped at ungloved fingertips.

Undaunted, my senses searched for signs of spring. There was no heady aroma of freshly thawed earth, only the crunch underfoot of gravel furrowed with long crystals of new evening ice.

Ears strained but there was no welcome chorus of peepers, whose songs herald an ephemeral fire of life brought forth, as if by magic, in tiny forest puddles.

Eyes traced the flare of a shooting star but longed to see the V of Canada geese on their journey north.

I turned, disheartened, for home, to seek for yet another night, the warmth of a granite hearth.

It was then that I spied my sign, low in the western sky. There, sinking, just to the left of a brilliant crescent moon, was the great giant that once ruled the winter night. I stood for a time and watched Orion descending. But now, his power over the night nearly gone, his upraised arms seemed to send a defiant signal — perhaps a lonely last call for retreat to the forces of winter’s occupation.