Happily Lost and Finding our Way

We got lost, although the consequence was hardly catastrophic.  Traveling south on Vermont 5, we had parked at a roadside pull-off to get a more patient look at some red-leafed maples.  Reds are thinning by this time in the season, and a stand of consecutive maples had caught our attention.  After a few minutes of quiet absorption we walked on alongside the road, enjoying the closer connection and the more pedestrian pace.  It was only then that we had seen the small sign marking entrance to Pinnacle Trail.  A narrow entrance, we hadn't noticed it from the car.  No one was expecting us, and time was our own, so we stepped away from the pavement and into the woods and the leaf carpeted trail that, according to the sign, led .5 miles to the summit.  There were a few rocky climbs, but the surrounding birches and and pines and hemlock, oaks and maples and shaded hillside meadows beckoned in.  We found our rhythm, forgot about the car, and walked.

We had been doing a careful job of following the blazes marking the trail, signaling lanes and switchbacks, but near what must have been the half-way point we suddenly stopped.  "Where is the trail?" I asked -- as much to myself as to Lori.  We pecked around, but the absent trail became undeniable.  The clearing had suddenly petered out into a thicket cluttered with felled trees and undergrowth.  How could we have missed the marking?  It would be convenient to blame poor trail maintenance, or the obscuring effects of stormy weather that had recently passed through the area.  The truth, however, was closer at hand:  we had simply become engaged in animated conversation, and had grown too preoccupied with watching our feet to pay guiding attention to where we were going.  Both were understandable.  We enjoy, after all -- indeed treasure -- the company of each other.  And the terrain was uneven -- rocks and veiling leaves, twigs and branches, inclines and erosions.  Neither of us wanted a twisted ankle, or a rump-a-coaster slide down the hillside.  We were paying close attention to each step.

But as a consequence, paying such attention to where we were, we lost sight of where we were going.  Backtracking, the damage was easily repaired.  We had simply zigged when we needed to zag.  The turn took us higher and deeper and more fully into the shower of falling leaves.  It was glorious; better, to be sure, than the dead end, but only somewhat.  It, too, had been into the woods, among the trees and under the leaves, in each other's company, in the crispness of an autumn in Vermont.  If the ultimate goal had been that important we would have had some points deducted.  As it was, the primary objective was simply to enjoy the day and one another; and toward that end we were earning a perfect score.  That we eventually claimed the summit and its view of the Connecticut River down and across the way was only bonus, hardly the prize, itself. 

Drinking in the view and savoring the moment, we joined hands and picked our way back down, toward the mouth of the trail and our car waiting beyond -- nourished, satisfied, and smiling; still talking, but paying, perhaps, less attention to our feet and more to the wonders -- and markings -- surrounding