Journal of Place 5 -- a hike!

Hello all,

Sorry for not posting in a few days: I have been preoccupied with an exciting hike on Saturday, and moving back to Wooster on Sunday.

Now, about this hike: it is a 5.6 mile (round-trip) excursion to Lake Twenty Two. Yes, it has a number for a name! This was part of the allure of this specific hike; after enough hikes, generic names like "Eagle Lake" and "Lake Serenity" become less exciting. The name "Twenty Two," on the other hand, is both surprising and mysterious. Nobody knows exactly how this lake came to be called thus, but the prevailing theory was that it was numbered 22 in some very old atlas, and somehow the number stuck.

We arrived at around 9:30 in the morning, and commenced our expedition. The trail starts through a dense, tropical forest, with moss, old growth, and vines dominating the treescape. Throughout the trail, there was a lot of water running downhill everywhere,a problem that we fixed by hopping around the tiny streams from rock to rock. To be honest, a lot of work has been invested by volunteers to maintain the trail: large portions are lined with logs, and in some places, logs are even used to form shallow stairs going uphill. Nonetheless, evasive maneuvers were necessary to avoid getting our feet wet.

After about 1 mile of trekking through the dark, green forest, we stumbled into a clearing packed with switchbacks. Because this spot was so steep, there were excellent views above the trees of the mountains surrounding us. At times, even the river far below was visible.

After the climb, the trail went back into the wet forest. After about 1 mile of avoiding streams and admiring craggy stumps, we arrived at our destination: Lake Twenty Two. The lake itself is not too remarkable: it is shallow, dirty, and filled with logs. However, the cliff at the bottom of which the lake sits is impressive, as well as the forest surrounding the lake. We ate here, using a boulder as a table, walked around the lake, and started heading back.

An interesting thing to note is that there were lots and lots of mushrooms, many of which are edible. October seems like a late time for mushrooms, but I guess where the weather is more temperate, the mushrooms wait for colder temperatures. We collected quite a few mushrooms (I do not know how they are called in English), and when we came back, we had enough for two meals. The abundancy of these mushrooms reminded me of Thoreau's call to simplicity: why bother with expensive, complicated food, when Nature's Bounty is so plentiful and delicious? I for one do not know.

              In Russian, these are called рыжики (ryuzhiki).