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15 Feb. 2006 -- Hello Friends and Family! Greetings from an unexpected layover. Go ahead, pull out your Catamount Trail maps and draw a new line from Londonderry to Plymouth. . . . forty five miles. . and our journey now stands on its’ own with two beautiful legs supporting us. . legs that are becoming stronger with each day of skiing, road-walks, and “skwalking”, a specialized form of cross-country skiing that can only be done in unique conditions of less than two inches of snow.

In the words of Colin, “We all enjoyed staying at Taylor Farm, but nothing beats the bush!” So the bush we headed for once again on February seventh, starting with a road-walk with packs a little (or a lot) heavier than they had been on the first leg. We traveled 8 ½ miles on somewhat icy and crusty conditions, but winter has woken up and it finally felt cold (!!!!). . a new and exciting sensation for our fingertips, noses, and ears. As we skied up and down small hills we passed through several Forest types; both New and Old Growth Hardwood and lots of Wet Lowland Evergreen stands. A few people identified Bobcat tracks across the trail. . a reminder of whose land we are skiing through.

Happy to be back on the trail, we sat snug in our tent that night, set right next to a beautiful Beaver pond, and discussed leadership, as we now have a new addition to our Job Wheel. . Leader of the Day. Chris, Ashirah and Stefan are handing over to us more responsibilities for the Expedition, such as managing time and breaks on the trail, checking in with each member of the group, making navigational and campsite decisions, and overseeing the general flow of the day.

We woke up the following morning and headed out on the ice for our first Ice-testing lesson. We followed Chris in a single-file line, four feet between us, as he hit the ice with each step, with a sturdy pole he had cut down. He hits the ice. . he listens. . a solid “thud”. . he takes a stride forward. He hits the ice. . he listens. . a solid “thud”. . he takes a stride forward. He hits the ice. . we listen. . a solid “thud”. . we take a stride forward. He hits the ice. . we listen. . a hollow sound. . the ice is too thin. . we stand still close to a live Beaver lodge. We could feel the Beavers right below us, probably curious about all the “thuds” above them.

We skied 9 ½ miles in nice, cold conditions on the Catamount Trail, with a nice two-mile descent on a snow mobile trail, and a one mile road-walk. We had a community discussion about ways for the group to travel more efficiently on the trail. We made a few changes to our trail travel ways, such as better communication from the front to the back of the line, taking a ten minute break as a group every 1 ½ - 2 hours, and each person being responsible for the person directly behind them. Our new system seems to be succeeding in making our travel more efficient.

February ninth, at 1:30 in the afternoon we had skied 5 ½ miles. . and came to a challenging decision. We could either push ourselves another 6 ½ miles, or turn back a little ways to give ourselves more time to enjoy and explore a campsite. . something that some of us felt we had not enough time to do at other campsites. We went around and around. . and around our circle until the decision to turn back and call it a day was made. The moment we set ski on the edge of a vast open Beaver pond we felt we had made an amazing decision.

We took our time setting up camp and had some time to ourselves for exploration of this beautiful land, surrounded with the energy of the North. We came back together and learned about the Moose Maple Tree and the Hobble Bush (our legs being the true ones to understand where this name comes from) and found signs of moose; beaten-up and stepped-over trees. As we walked back to the warmth of our home, I took in the beauty of a tent sitting peacefully on the edge of an open Beaver pond. . the smoke rising eagerly out of the pipe, then sailing quickly away in all directions.

February tenth brought us our longest skiing day yet! We covered 10 ½ miles of Catamount Trail, dirt road, power lines, and lake. We felt even more the result of deciding to cut it short the previous day. We started with a three mile traverse of the western side of Ludlow Mountain on the Catamount Trail, then flew downhill for two miles to a road-walk, then skied/skwalked/walked underneath power lines for a couple miles to a short road-walk, which brought us to the magical Lake Nineva. . where we experienced our first in-the-dark camp set-up. . which I must say is really no different than in-the-light camp set-up. That night we fell asleep to the conversation between the ice and the trees. . loud booms and cracks to keep us curious throughout the night, especially Andy and Lucas (and Hannah for a little while), who slept outside on a bough bed, under a waxing moon.

The following morning we learned that the sounds we heard were made from lower layers of ice forming, and layers on the surface contracting, creating the cracking sound. It’s quite exciting (and surprising enough to let out a shriek) skiing across a lake to have your daydreams suddenly interrupted by the loud cracking of ice beneath your skis. It’s also quite exciting skiing across a lake to have your daydreams suddenly interrupted by the figure of a fresh coyote-killed deer lying motionless on the open ice. We gratefully took the gift of two hind legs, leaving the rest for the animals. We then continued racking in 6 ½ miles for the day, through a frozen marsh and onto the Catamount Trail, where we enjoyed a few miles of beautiful Hardwood Forest. Our muscles quivered under the weight of our packs as we climbed Bear Mountain. The view was certainly worth the quivering. . . . “We’re in the mountains now,” Ashirah told me as we took off our skis and walked down the mountain.

The search for a campsite brought us to a tranquil spot, tucked between the trees, next to Great Roaring Brook (which must be its summer name, as it sounded quite peaceful to my ears). After camp was set we shared a very special meal together. Sitting and standing around a big bonfire, as the light of the moon shone on our faces, strips of fresh venison snaked onto finger-sized hardwood saplings. . we appreciated the gift of the deer we had found. “When we finally went into the tent that night, everyone sat closer together than normal so that there was a big gap in the circle. We felt so close at that point it was a beautiful thing” (from Tom’s Group Journal page). A seventeenth member shared our home with us, standing directly inside the door flap; a tree that we felt did not need to be cut down, instead joined our community for the night.

The last day of our second leg we skied 5 miles. . which allowed us the time to have some unexpected fun! We skied right onto a downhill slope at Bear Creek Mountain Club, practicing our telemark turns and snow-plows, which is a different skill altogether with a fifty-pound backpack. To our giddy amusement the Club was kind enough to give us a free ride up their ski-lift and down their slopes. Wow. . what fun! This lifted our already high spirits even higher into the snowy mountains. We continued on snow mobile trails, crossed Black Pond, crossed Route 100 a few times, then crossed Woodward Reservoir to our second layover at Farm and Wilderness, which is an organization that offers camps and programs specializing in primitive skills and community-building activities (We get the feeling that this place shares many values, philosophies, and activities with Kroka).

I’m beginning to notice a theme of layovers. . busy busy busy showers, laundry, fresh food, busy busy busy, wax skis, sharpen knives, wrap axe handles, busy busy busy, sew mukluks and mitten shells, Big Job work, meetings with Misha, busy busy busy, repair gear, dry tent and fly, catch up on Group Journal pages, thank you notes, journals, the Expedition Log, phone calls, and letter writing, busy busy. . . . busy. We created a January Weather Summary Main Lesson Page (a surprising theme of warm weather and little snow), as well as talked about how incredibly useful a skill it is to be able to predict weather simply by observing what is going on in the sky. This is also a skill that is being lost today. . My elders told me tall tales, they knew and read the weather like a book (from a poem called Dream by Margaret Sam-Cromarty). It is a skill that is so important to life in the bush. It is having the knowledge to choose a campsite in a valley over a campsite with a gorgeous view on a mountain top, simply because the sky had been completely cloudless that morning. . “Not a cloud in the sky, 24 hours set the fly”. These are some other weather sayings that we are using: “Winter frost on a tree, storm’s gonna be”, “Wind born at night, the change will not be slight”, “Smoke to the sky, pressure is high. Smoke falls, weather calls.” Weather predicting is a skill that we will work on throughout this journey. I’m predicting that on June 11th it will snow eight feet of sensational powder, and white puffy clouds will organize themselves to spell out the words Here is what you prayed for. . sorry it’s late. Enjoy the skiing!

We had a very special guest, named Mary Stewart, share with us her magical talent of storytelling. She enchanted us with tales of the creation of light, the crocodiles of oblivion, the dancer and the spinner, connection to the land, history, and a River Expedition she took with her father. She shared with us her belief that we are traveling stories. . history in the making, packing each other’s stories into our backpacks and taking them with us wherever we go. . and that there are no stories without the fire. . because that is where stories are told.

We have also begun to think about the woods around us in a different way. . through an historical approach. We look around us and realize that wood is what we have here. The people who came to this land during Colonial times saw the forests as a resource for many things; masts, houses, shingles, fences, fuel, as well as an obstacle in the way of having fields for cultivation. The forest itself came to have a value at market. Clear-cutting occurred at an incredible rate, which changed the land so much. The White Pines, which used to stand 200 feet tall and six feet in diameter, were the first to go. Can you imagine such a Pine Tree? The trees that were not so “useful” were burned to get to those giant “Grandfathers”. Waste did not seem to be an issue at that time. The consciousness then was not saving resources, but it was saving labor. Did those people not see a reason to take care of the resources? How can we change peoples’ consciousness so that their objective is to take care of the resources. . that they desire to take care of them? I’ll have to get back to you with the answer to this question. . . . but we’re for sure working on it.

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