I’m reading this interesting book River gave me for my birthday (and which I had asked for), written by Rebecca Solnit, called A Field Guide to Getting Lost. When I first unwrapped the gift, my father-in-law sitting with us burst into laughter, and scoffed at the apparently hostile nature of such a present for a husband to give a wife. Far from it, however, this book is about discovery. In it the author describes the mystical side of becoming lost, in all senses of the word. She talks about how the root of the word “lost” comes from Norse for disbanding an army—so, in her thinking, becoming lost is a form of making peace with the unknown. We lose items, a kind of “known loss” because we ourselves are the constant while the items have disappeared. And we lose ourselves, the changing environment the constant while we flit through it, uncertain of our location. Solnit goes on from there and it’s quite fascinating.
So it was with amusement today that I ventured off to the east of my home city to find a place to explore outdoors with my children on this fine late-summer day, and we proceeded to become lost. Each time we got lost, I had the sense that I should somehow savor it. We were never quite so lost as to be undiscovered, or for us not to find our way back from wherever we were, but we were just lost enough that I was disoriented and had moments of bleak uncertainty, as the only adult in a pack of four, driving a van that seems ready to die at any moment from a worsening oil leak and slipping transmission, or walking through the woods without gear to spend the night holed up properly while the weather gets chillier these late August evenings. We were just lost enough for it to be exciting.
The place we hiked was Peaked Mountain in Monson, Massachusetts. I had never been there before. About a year ago, River went there with our kids and two local friends. It was a distant enough memory that he could recommend me going there, but he couldn’t remember what it was called. After solving that problem, I looked around on the Internet for a while and found driving directions there from the Massachusetts Turnpike—further north than where I would be coming from. Impatient with the children hopping around all over me and needing to get out the door, I hastily scribbled the only partially-helpful directions, grabbed my Massachsetts Gazetteer (a very detailed map of the whole state), and off we went.
The first time I got lost was as we passed through Hampden, Mass., which borders on Monson. I missed a left fork I should have taken, misunderstanding some street signs and not being too aware at that point of the directions closer to the mountain. We drove for some time quite far south and probably passed into Connecticut. When the road turned to dirt and gravel, and the forest looked quite wild, and the new housing developments more and more austentatious, I decided I needed to turn around. But by that time, the road was only wide enough for one car, and it was on rather steep terrain. It took me a while to find an appropriate driveway for turning. Then I consulted my map closely and realized why the road signs were all wrong and saw where I had missed the left fork. Back we went.
After that we had no trouble finding the parking lot for the mountain. It was well-marked and right where it was supposed to be. We pulled into the lot, got out of our van, and I loaded my backpack with a few snacks, my camera, a bag of first-aid supplies, and a full bottle of water. We encountered a couple parties of hikers just emerging from the woods, leaving the parking lot empty except for us. It was a little intimidating. I consulted the large map display, having anticipated trail maps available for use at the lot. The display holders were empty. I tried to hold the image of the display map in my brain. The routes to the top of the mountain were many, with several mysteriously marked intersections of trails (numbered, apparently for convenient reference, but in my case for a confusing effect). Trails were named strangely and veered north then south then east then west: the best I could do was memorize a route to the top. Left fork, left fork, right, right, right, then we’d be there. This was if we didn’t take the scenic route near the top, “Valley View.”
We hiked to the intersection with “Valley View” and of course, as fate would have it, we took that route. This was the beginning of all wrong forks taken. However, it didn’t really matter. We were getting lost, and we were having fun.
We reached what we thought was the top. Here we rested, ate, took pictures, enjoyed the gorgeous sky and clouds, made birdcalls, learned how to use Paolo’s sundial, even though it was broken, and examined everything from granite chunks to tree leaves to the far-away Pioneer Valley through Paolo’s handy travel binoculars.
Then we decided to take this other route away from our cozy rock where we had such a great view of the valley. This route went off along what appeared to be the eastern side of the mountain and felt nothing at all like where we had come up. It was beautiful, captivating, and sunny by that time, so we all enjoyed that part of the hike, with amazing views every time the trees opened up a little. And we found the actual peak of the mountain along this route as well.
Unfortunately, though, by this time—and with enough of my talk about the gorgeous thunderheads way off to the east, freaking out my daughter, making her panic and wanting to leave the mountain right away—we were quite disoriented. As I had no map, I really wasn’t sure how far away we were from where we’d come up. We were following blue blazes and the best we could do was keep following them. But then we made a fatal mistake at another fork, where we should have taken a left across the narrow part of the mountain (here, deep in the woods), and instead I chose the directly-down, wide-open road path, helpfully marked “Ruth’s Mountain Road.” As we walked, we knew it was nothing like where we were supposed to be, but we were too tired to backtrack. (Well, I was too tired.) I just wanted to make it out of there without actually having to carry any of my children. Vigil in particular took a few falls and for some time along “Ruth’s Mountain Road” he just wailed and cried and I thought I was going to lose it. But he stuck it out.
After walking for a long, long time down this path we finally emerged from the woods into a beautiful, sheltered meadow. There were a few fences around and what looked like a garden area. No parking lot, nothing like where we had entered. At least we were near the road, I thought. We walked a little ways (following what looked like others’ footsteps through the tall grass) and spotted the road. But which road was it? Where were we?
There was a handy little map box right next to the road, where “Ruth’s Mountain Road” comes out. Relief, I thought, as long as there are maps in it. I peeked in the plexiglass front and was happy to see that there was a disheveled, moldy-looking little pile of folded-up trail maps. I opened the lid of the box to grab one, only to realize why the maps had been left there; a healthy-sized little hornet’s nest was situated comfily in the corner of the inside of the box. Standing in what seemed to be poison ivy, I explained to my kids that I needed them to pray for me. I tried to reach in the box. I hesitated. I shuddered. I tried to move slowly. The hornets (or whatever they were) crawled lazily around on the hive. They didn’t seem to notice me. Or did they? My hand hovered near the opening. My hand went in. I tried to reach the edge of a trail map. I hesitated. Had they seen me? All their activity suddenly froze. They had noticed my hand! I couldn’t do it. I withdrew and scurried away, shuddering. The thought of 20 hornets following us as we ran, screaming, in one direction or another (mostly me screaming at the children to run away, run away, not having coached them in the art of fleeing angry, stinging insects)—was more than I could bear. If another adult had been with me, maybe I could have risked it. The potential injury could be dealt with. But I couldn’t risk all four of us like that. Better to guess which direction to go in, than anger a little nest of nasties. Of course I felt like a failure, like my sense of adventure and courage had drained out of me. But which one of you would stick your hand in there, eh? Am I such a sap?
I stood there and literally closed my eyes, trying to picture the map at the display where we had parked. I knew there was another hiking area north of the mountain. Was that were we had ended up? As it turned out, no, but in any case I thought we were north of where we needed to be, which probably meant going left at the road. If we were actually south of the parking lot, we were screwed if we went left, but I just had to trust the feeling.
Sometimes, when I am lost, I choose the direction that is exactly opposite of where I need to go. Perhaps I get this from my mother, who has talked about doing the same thing. But sometimes I choose the right way, when I fear it may be wrong, but I have a strong gut feeling that it is right. Today was one of those times. We went left and left turned out to be right.
I had the children walk single-file behind me on the road. They reluctantly did this. It was practice for the military or some such thing. A truck or two passed us and we managed not to get hit. Finally I saw another woman approaching from the opposite direction along this beautiful rural byway. I shouted over to her, “Which direction to the parking lot for Peaked Mountain?” She indicated that I was heading in the right direction… that was a relief.