We spent a day in December walking in the woods along and above the Beaver Flow Trail with Alcott Smith. A renown NH naturalist and retired veterinarian, Alcott was to speak on how animals prepare for winter. It was an educational hike sponsored by Northeast Wilderness Trust in this forest we know and love, so we were pleased to support both (we also love to learn new stuff and hike around aimlessly). It seemed like a perfect way to spend a Saturday.

As usual, it didn’t quite turn out the way we expected, but for all that it was a true learning experience. Alcott Smith was a brilliant scientist, his range of knowledge vast and unending and his wry sense of humor a real pleasure. He also took such pleasure in his discussions of all things wild, that he could talk for more than an hour without moving or seeming to notice the passage of time at all.

This would have been wonderful if we were all sprawled in the tall grass soaking up sunshine, but standing on the frozen ground on shivering legs, blue lips frozen into a pitiful grin, it was an exercise in mind over matter (e.g. I will not give in to becoming a human popsicle, I will not…). This was made more imperative by the fact that Alcott didn’t even wear a hat, scarf or even a coat, but made due with a wool shirt. At one point I had pulled on a pair of old, torn rain pants out of the bottom of my husband’s pack (they had probably been there since 1975) and yanked them up over my pants, gaiter and boots, then found a small patch of sunshine and perched on my pack pulling my knees up into a heat saving hug and trying to fit my entire body into that small patch of solar radiation.

Alcott talked on, totally oblivious, about beavers, plants, trees, invasive species, forest pathology, the digestive tracts of bears, the protein value of grubs and just about anything else that related to wildlife. I swear he covered about a month’s worth of my undergraduate mammology classes in just a few hours. Latin names were flying, as were physiological descriptions (from delayed implantation to a very detailed description of the beavers’ castor glands). We even fit in a discussion of the changing taxonomic nomenclature due to the genome project. He wasn’t all about five syllable words (though there were a lot of those), but also spoke of really paying attention and feeling the wilds with all your senses. I especially liked his suggestion that we experience the woods more tactilely by walking through it naked (though the thought of it made me lapse into an episode of uncontrolled teeth chatting).

In the end it wasn’t the tremendous quantity of information that did me in though, it was just the creeping cold in the face of our still bodies. I can stay warm in almost any temperature with the right clothes and if I can keep my body moving, but there is almost no way to dress for standing for hours in damp, cold air without moving. It gives me greater respect for ice fisherman and those hunters who sit in tree stands for hours on end. Do they have better cold coping skills? More body fat? Are they just more stubborn? Are they crazy?

At about 2 o’clock Alcott stopped to chat about the antler abscission layer in moose and then went on stream of conscious style to tell us about about bears consuming whole orchards of fruit and the their digestive abilities and reproductive habits and the cubs’ growth curves and a myriad of other truly interesting facts that went on for quite a while. We were about a quarter mile above the Beaver Flow Trail, standing around an interesting tree.

Suddenly I bolted awake, having dozed off and wilted down onto my pack, leaning up against a tree, probably looking like a drunken sailor. I was shivering, my limbs aching, and I had a strong urge to just lie down in the snow and take a nice restful doze (probably until spring). Sheepishly when the group moved on, I bowed out to make my way back through the woods to find the trail and then vigorously walk back to the car (I will not become a popsicle, I will NOT become a popsicle…) and home to a hot bath.

I tried hard not be embarrassed about the fact that everyone else on the hike lasted another two hours (I thought about this while I lay in a very hot tub reading my book). Everyone makes clothing errors occasionally and as long as you make it home afterward you can redeem yourself on the next hike (and smirk knowingly at the other poor suckers shivering and sniffling).

But beyond that I couldn’t help feeling encouraged by so many people coming on the hike (and all with enough outdoor gear) and everyone’s willingness to just experience the woods — see the shapes and colors of plants and animal signs, smell the ever changing stages of flower to fruit to decay and feel the sun and wind (and icy cold) on our skin.

We move through a world of stress, and noise and deadlines with an ever shrinking supply of quiet, reflective moments in the woods from which to draw strength. Sometimes we just have to be reminded to stop and smell the skunk cabbage. Thank you Alcott Smith.

And now to find those long underwear…