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A Journey Through the Forest
By: Hanna Greto
I grab a snack and my water bottle, step out of the screen porch, walk along the stone path next to the faded blue-ish gray barn that’s worn and splintering with age, and enter the forest. I pass the teepee on my right that I made with the neighborhood kids when I was younger, still standing but not as strong as it once was, where we used to pretend we were orphans in the forest playing “house”. I continue down the bumpy bike trail through the trees, glancing at the rusted old parts of a truck that haven’t moved in decades; no one knows quite why they’re there but we guess that it must have once been open farmland. The bike trail covered in dead fallen pine needles spits out into a gravely, open logging road, and before me I see the endless National Forest at the base of the White Mountains. I continue down the logging road as I approach the familiar bog. The bog has a very distinct smell of the clear, fresh water trickling from one side of the logging road, flowing into the vast, mucky bog in which I can smell the mud. I see the chewed down trees left behind as marks that the beavers were there, and the tall, majestic mountains are watching over me in the background across the bog. I can hear the frogs croaking, as if they’re calling from another world deep within the forest, somewhere invisible. I see ripples in the water and I know that there are fish swimming and crawfish nestled within the deep, wet mud.
I pass the bog after taking it in, and keep following the logging road to find what I call the “fairy streams”. The fairy streams are crystal clear brooks with delicate, whispering waters flowing over the sandy bottom, lined by moss-covered rocks which are perfect for rock hopping to the other side. As I continue on I see one of the many waterfalls that mark the forest standing above me. As I climb the trail to the top of the waterfall I cross several other fairy streams. Their remnance leaves the ground damp and radiating the fresh smell of the Earth from the dirt beneath my feet. I keep going, brushing against the spiky pine trees that remind me of Christmas with their familiar smell. I find myself at the top, with a pool of water glaring at me, perfect for wading into to cool off. When I turn around to trek back to the bottom of the falls, I can find yet