A Night in Pachaug

Enchantment One

Awareness of large predators is, apparently, one of those basic instincts that has dulled for me over time. It took me almost a minute for me to grasp the significance of the large gray form, close along the roadside with fangs bared.

My distracted, 21^st century mind was focused on my friend Phil, who I was convincing that we weren’t lost, that I had been in these woods a hundred times. I could get us to our destination easily. We had just stepped off the trail to a gravel road, an obvious shortcut (or was it?) in the middle of Pachaug State Forest. Middle afternoon was giving way to late. The February sun was still a couple hours away from checkout, yet there was a menace to the shadows pooling beneath hemlocks, those skeletal woods where no birds sang. Bare deciduous trees afforded fractured views of the gray hills, and long-abandoned farm walls. There was plenty of landscape to go around. At over 26,000 acres, Pachaug is Connecticut’s biggest state forest.

Even, as I pondered exactly where in those 26,000 acres we might be, my attention zoomed in toward the foreground, the spot right behind Phil’s feet.

“Uh, Phil, you might not want to turn around right now,” I said.

Of course, he did exactly that. The creature was right out of Grimm’s fairy tales, an Eastern Coyote, sprawled out dead. A wound in its side hinted at a mortal injury. Perhaps it had met a speeding ATV earlier. Another distracted mind.

“Whoa! Of course, I’m going to check this out!” Phil exclaimed.

We were on a short overnight doorstep adventure. We had started from our homes in Mystic and pedaled our bikes into North Stonington, about an hour’s ride, so that we could camp out at a nearby lean-to and hike around. Phil, a longtime friend, has climbed in the Andes and Himalayas and is no stranger to the extremes. This adventure was a meant to be a simple getaway however, not an epic

It had been months since I’d spent a night outdoors. Although I had taken brief requiems biking and hiking in nature, I hungered for a larger pilgrimage, a pilgrimage where I could take a break from distracted thinking and contemplate small enchantments. Such wonders included the coyote corpse, grotesque, beautiful, and a reminder of the wilderness character that never left our state.

Eastern Coyotes are, in fact, hybrids, between coyotes and wolves – the thinking goes, and so it was unsurprising to see resemblance between the Canis latrans specimen at our feet and the scourge of Little Red Riding Hood. Attacks on humans are vanishingly rare. Yet, buried instincts had surfaced at last. The coyote’s broad muscles and sharp teeth gave me pause.

The corpse made a fitting ambassador to Pachaug, which has always seemed a little strange, to me, a little dark. The many fens and hollows lie beneath towering, schist escarpments, thrown together, as if by sorcery. Small family graveyards lie moldering beneath snags.

Enchantment Two

Ice stalagmite in Bear Cave

When I was a kid, my dad and I spent many trips wandering these woods looking for Bear Cave in North Stonington. Before the Internet heyday, there was far less information than there is now. We got lost plenty of times. Eventually, we found Bullet Ledge, a ship-like bulwark of fractured rock that rises above the trees. Halfway up the ledge, we found an opening.

Back at the coyote, I mapped a rough sketch of how I could get back to the cave. My mistake had been following a reroute on the Narragansett Trail, which missed the cave, apparently. Instead, we followed the road, in what I hoped was the right direction. I made an informed guess at an intersection, and in another 20 minutes we were back on course.

It was Phil’s first time inside the cave. I always enjoy taking newcomers up the steep path up Bullet Ledge and then casually stopping next to the cave opening. Much like a dead coyote, it’s very easy to miss. Once upon a time, Phil had heard, there really had been a bear inside the cave. A group of natives led a colonist to the spot – so he could shoot it dead.

We clambered inside, where there was the familiar musty darkness, tiny dribbles of groundwater percolating from the top of the hill. The cave goes in 30 feet or more. It was nothing new for me, However, I was most taken by some of the ice formations at the cave mouth. Icicles were utterly smooth and clear. Low afternoon light struck orange fire within the crystalline enchantments. An icicle stalagmite was perfectly symmetrical, clear, and balanced, with utter improbability, on a narrow base. It was an elongated teardrop. It was an alien shrine.

Phil emerges from Bear Cave

Camp

Enchantment Three.

We hiked swiftly back to the shelter where we’d left our bikes. The wood we gathered earlier waited by a fire pit. We were on a ridge, and I could see miles in all directions, including still frozen lakes and swampland, out to the surrounding ridges. In the last six hours, we had only seen one family out hiking, one off-roader. It wasn’t a bad record for Connecticut.

As the sun lowered, we coaxed wettish twigs into sullen flame, and then cheered as the fire blossomed over the larger branches.

Phil graced me with a beer. I balanced a pot of creek water on a grate to make couscous dinner.

Outside, the twisting morass of trunks and forest branches compressed to a two-dimensional print against orange horizon and darkling blue. Planets emerged. Stars winked into existence. Well-being trickled into my restless mind. To fill completely, I’d need more time. A lifetime.

Owls boomed from distant trees. I smiled at the night.

Enchantment Four

The dark blue and gathering orange framed the branches again. I enjoyed seeing the last night’s show repeat itself, but in reverse.

Woodpecker staccato Boodooboodabooop! Badabadapop! resonated through the forest. Small chirping birds raised their voices at last.

Fungus on a cut log made a soggy Christmas wreath.

Phil and I talked about the owls we’d heard last night. After I conked out, he claimed to have heard some coyote yips as well – at least it sounded that way. After a while he hit the radio, and why not? I wanted to hear the latest about the troop build ups.

Wolves everywhere. Circle the wagons.

I raised a fire on the embers of the last, brought water to a boil. We drank our coffee, packed the bikes, and rolled out.