Sometimes It's Better Not to Know Where You're Going

The fire road we walked at the end of our

hike and last year’s dead Japanese knotweed

stalks on the left.

 It's not officially spring yet, but the weather this weekend made it feel like it was. On Saturday all five of us -- me, my husband, and our three boys – packed a picnic lunch to take on a loop trail we'd seen a few weeks ago. We had no idea how long the trail was, and we failed to consult a trail map; we had just noticed a trail sign saying "loop" and figured we'd see where the arrows led. From this information you might conclude that we have little hiking experience; if you happen to know that we in fact have extensive hiking experience, then you might conclude that we were feeling adventurous. As it turns out, it somehow just did not occur to us that a sign that said "loop" but gave no indication of the mileage of this loop could be anything more than a quick trip.

So off we went. The trail starts from an open field where the kids and I often picnic. We usually eat atop a giant rock that just begs little boys to climb on it, but today we continued past the rock to the far edge of the field, where the "loop" sign points into the woods. At first we picked our way across several trail-wide mud puddles and wondered whether we'd picked the wrong season for this trail, but fortunately it soon began to climb to drier ground. We encountered frequent helpful "loop" signs pointing the way. As the first real

A great climbing tree!

ascent began to taper off, we came to a magnificent climbing tree whose three large trunks made the perfect seat – our boys longed for such good tree-house material on our own property. After the boys all had a chance to sit in the tree, we moved on to the next trail junction and "loop" sign, which much to our surprise indicated that the loop went farther up the hill, away from our starting point. So, with a  lingering dash of skepticism, we kept climbing. Eventually we came to another trail junction – this one pointedly missing a "loop" sign or any arrows.

My husband, who has an infallible and impressive sense of direction, figured we should turn to the right. I wondered whether we were intended to keep to the main trail, only because we hadn't been told to do otherwise. Admittedly, though, the main trail was not going in the right direction, and we'd already been hiking for quite some time. We could see a nice picnic spot on a stone wall a little ways down the trail to the right, so we veered off and stopped to eat our lunch.

Hello, spring! Sprouting chives.

With full tummies, we then proceeded down the trail and came to a little cabin and an education center. There were some picnic tables out on the lawn, but no sign of a continuing trail. We thus backtracked to the main trail and continued to the next trail junction, where once again there was no "loop" sign to guide us. Fortunately, while my husband and I were debating the best course to take (and the kids were running wildly ahead on their own despite our instructions to the contrary), another couple and their dog came along. We mentioned that we were trying to hike the loop, and to our pleasure they seemed to know exactly which loop we meant.  They pointed us to the right and said we'd hit a fire road in a little bit. We'd then follow the fire road until it intersected another trail on our right, and that would lead us back to our starting point.

My 6-year-old looking through a dead

Japanese knotweed stalk. Japanese knotweed

is hollow, like bamboo. You can see the rest

of the clump behind him.

All of this turned out to be true, and although the loop took us beyond our 2-year-old's nap time (and although this meant I had to carry him for much of the way), I'm glad we didn't know the length of the loop at the start. We would definitely have deemed the trip too large an undertaking given our late-morning beginning, and we would have missed out on a pleasant walk, not to mention a great climbing tree and a nice picnic spot. What's more, I would have missed seeing the little tufts of chives sprouting at the base of our favorite picnic rock and hinting at spring. I would have missed the multitudes of nutshells scattered about beneath a tree at the picnic area near the education center (although the tree looked a little different from the shaggy-barked trees I discovered on our recent bike ride -- see my previous post – the nuts looked identical, so I'm guessing this was a variety of hickory). And I would have missed the stands of Japanese knotweed along the edges of the fire road. (Japanese-knotweed-strawberry pie is reportedly even tastier than strawberry-rhubarb pie, which is one of my favorites; incidentally, when I pointed out the dead stalks at the side of the fire road and excitedly made plans to come back to harvest the new stalks later this spring, my husband raised his eyebrows a little -- he remembered the weed growing at his childhood home but never knew the plant was edible. In fact, most people with Japanese knotweed on their property have no idea it's so tasty but would dearly love for people to pick it; it's considered an invasive weed that can strangle out other vegetation.)

I also would have missed noticing several trees with a peculiar habit of sending multiple branches sprouting from a single point along the trunk. I remember reading that a distinguishing feature of the hackberry tree is that it produces "witches' brooms" in which several branches sprout from one place like this. This multiple sprouting is caused by a fungus that commonly infects the tree. The bark of the hackberry tree is rough and ridged, which

At several places along its trunk, this tree is

sprouting multiple new branches. I’m wondering

whether it might be a hackberry tree, which 

produces edible red berries in the fall.

also fits the description of the trees I saw. Now at home, I have learned that the twigs are greenish or reddish brown, so I'll have to examine the twigs of this potential hackberry the next time we picnic in our field (the trees are alongside the path to the field from the parking area). Hackberry trees produce edible red berries in early September, and the berries apparently can remain on the tree throughout a good portion of the winter (I didn't see any berries on these trees, though).

Finding four edible or at least possibly edible plants when just about all the vegetation is still brown and dead isn't too shabby! Add in some exercise, a pleasant walk, and a great climbing tree, and I'd say getting a little lost isn't always so bad.