July.
The days are warm and full of activity. Gardens are beginning to show fruit and
the black caps are growing juicy on the vine. The days are full of flowers and lying
in the hammock between the two old trees. The chickens run happily around the
yard chasing butterflies and scratching for worms in the dry dirt. The
mountains seem to fade into a shimmering purple haze of heat. Streams are
gurgling merrily along. Insects store their energy during the heat of the day
and emerge in the cool evening. Rainbow trout rise lazily to the hatch beneath
the riffles of the dams, breathing in the life-affirming oxygen. For humans,
the heat begins to drive us to the shade of the woods. It’s going to be a long
hot summer and the mountains are calling me. My wife, Katie, my sister, Callie
from CT, and I pack a picnic lunch and load the truck with bottles of water and
snacks. As so many Vermonters do, we are heading for
the respite of camp. The
nice thing about camps is that it really doesn’t matter whether your camp is a
spacious monument on a stone wall overlooking the lake or if it’s something
simple tucked off in the woods away from the maddening crowds. It’s a getaway. It’s
a place where the mundane rules of everyday etiquette relax a bit. It’s okay to
not make your bed. It’s okay to wake up a little later and eat a hearty
breakfast at 10:00. The days are unrushed. Our little camp is humble – heck
some people might think it’s a paragon of poverty – but to us and the people we
invite, it’s a slice of heaven.
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| Nothing Fancy |
As the
truck pitches from side to side going up the old logging road we sing along to
the radio and it feels like we are in a time machine going backwards to a
simpler period in human life.
We pull up to the deck and check the water
system, which is extracted from the bubbling brook. It fills an old bathtub
with ice cold mountain spring water. Once hooked up, the same wonderful aqueous
substance flows directly into the kitchen sink.Two large recliners and a fold
down couch surround the old Defiant woodstove with a touch of rust on the
surface.
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| The Old Defiant Stove |
After a
cool drink of water, our friends begin to arrive. One by one, big wheeled
trucks roll up into the parking area. Coolers of food and beverages are
unloaded and bottles are placed in the bathtub where they will remain slightly
above freezing.
After
everyone unpacks, we collectively decide to hike to the top of Crow Hill for a
view of the valley. The ascent is steep and full of loose rocks. Arriving at
the top we are literally clinging to small pines to pull ourselves up to the
next level. The short pines are thick and the ground is covered in spongy moss,
its musky fragrance blending with the aromatic balsam and permeating the air
around us. We are sweat soaked and our knees are shaking. Another 100 yards to
the rock outcropping.
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| Sacred Beauty |
We
follow a deer trail right to the spot. Suddenly, the trees part and we are
standing on a large shelf of rock, looking down on the Champlain Valley that
seems to wave like a mirage in the heat. Beyond, we can see the lake shimmering
in the mid day sun. The Adirondacks seem to reach up into the azure sky,
blending in bluish-purple with the distant horizon. As far as the eye can see,
there is beauty.
Sacred
beauty that cannot be touched by development.
For this, we
