Brushstroke of autumn

Today I went hiking in white oak canyon in Shenandoah National Park. A place this time of year that is runny with colors and sensations. With the tell-tale brushstroke of autumn painting the blue ridge.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself that this wild beauty is in my own backyard. I got up early and took route 33, the rural route west. It took me right through the heart of the piedmont into the foothills while the morning mist was still evaporating of the fields. Rocky streams tumble down through the canyon framed in stands of stout white oaks. Bright yellow hickory, red maple, and yellowing birch swirl together in a mosaic of color blanketing the trees, all naked now.

Further up the canyon huge waterfalls tumble off high gorges in the sun. A good place to stretch out your legs and take lunch, maybe even read some poetry. T.S. Eliot for me, and why not? Then cut across away from the stream by an old forest service road, silent and brown. Freckled with the years first snowfall in the shadow of cold ravines and wispy white down amongst the leaf litter from cracked milkweed pods.

The trail became lost somewhere on the way back where the canyon narrows into a wild gorge. The path just disappears into the rocks and fallen boulders like into a bear's den and then reappears beyond past the rocky slide of the canyon walls. By trails end old settlers cabins, now long since abandoned, give evidence of the past. Rocky farmers walls seem to grow out of the oak woods, hinting at the past while down the road Graves mountain beckons with fresh apples arranged by the roadside barn. I picked up a whole bag on the way home.