Another cold day, colder even than our Bog Trail hike the other day. Too cold for Erin, Alden, and Keith, but Mary and I both wanted to get out, and Frankie always has energy to burn. My mom and I were waffling about whether to drive somewhere or just walk in the neighborhood. This issue resolved itself tidily when Erwin spoke up and volunteered to drive us to Woodchuck Hill Preserve. Like the rest of us, he had cabin fever and wanted to get outside. Plus, we'd gone to Woodchuck Hill a few weeks ago with Frankie, and found an interesting crossing: a passage. We started exploring the other side of the drainage, but had to turn back as we approached White Lake. Erwin and I were both very curious about what lay beyond our previous turnaround point, and were eager to explore further.
We knew my mom would be curious to try a different route, too. Mary used to hike into White Lake from a different route that has since become inaccessible. She first started going to White Lake when she was in high school, but hasn't been in many, many years. Last year at New Years, we explored the north edge of the drainage heading west, but never found White Lake, despite Mary's strong desire to do so. I now think that from our low vantage point along the drainage, the open water was simply obscured by the tall Phragmites. Either that or we did actually reach White Lake, but it looked so different, Mary's brain refused to accept it as such. In any case, we didn't find the crossing on that outing. Today, we went back and took the passage across to the other side again. We continued west past the point we'd turned back last time, into uncharted territory.
After we'd continued a short distance further down the skid trail we'd been following, Erwin spied a steep scramble down the ridge that looked like it might lead to the water. We all agreed it looked promising and set off down the slope. We could see an old boat through an opening in the reeds. I kept Frankie back with my mom and I while Erwin scouted the ice; once he deemed it safe enough to continue with caution, we followed him out in single file. We definitely found White Lake! It felt good. All of took turns in the boat, soaking up the view over the ice and feeling quite satisfied. Because of the late hour, we turned back after scrabbling back up the slope, and the sun set before we arrived at the parking lot. Erwin and I want to return again to explore the area further. Those ridges south of the lake look interesting, and can we loop all the way around White Lake? It's such a good feeling to have future explorations awaiting!
Also of note: On our last expedition here, Frankie, influenced by our recent readings of Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons and Swallowdale, in which the children explore unfamiliar places and bestow their own names to landmarks, dubbed White Lake "the Lake of the Ice." We were charmed by this moniker and took care to use it again on this outing, encouraging him to name other landmarks we might encounter. In another apparent nod to our current read aloud book, L. Frank Baum's original The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, today Frankie dubbed the outlet stream flowing east from White Lake, across which the crossing affords passage, the "Stream of the Ice Wizard." This is a fun new game! When we got home, completely unprompted, he set straightaway to drawing a map of our outing using his own names. We were all of us thrilled as could be!
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| someone had hung red bells at regular intervals along the trail |
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| the crossing was more solid today after the frigid temperatures we've been having |
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| this crossing may not be passable in summer |
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| Mary finally got back to White Lake, hurray! |
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| photo by Erwin |
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| Frankie's map |
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