Trail Talk – July 2026

COYOTE WAS GOING THERE, making tracks, making tracks… We continued along the trail less traveled, hopping the occasional log, pushing through the overgrown brush, because we understood that there were sights to see, birds to hear, and fragrant early summer blooms to smell. Somewhere, back there, behind us, were our shoeprints, the only evidence of our passing, added to the dust of the summer trail, or the sticky mud of the wetland crossing. One day, the toeprints of our “Five Finger” sandals, another day the Vibram tread of Minimus shoes: each day’s journey etched into the trail along with the squirrel, bear, elk, and others’ remnants of passage. For we, like Coyote, recognize this urge to simply be going there, making tracks.

Summer treks bring forth a litany of sensations. We are more exposed, not bundled into layers of heavy protection against the chill of months past and future. Repellants against biting flies and blood-thirsty mosquitos become necessary and remind us that we aren’t the top dog on the food chain. Preferred time in the outdoors becomes morning and evening hours, when Sol’s direct rays aren’t overheating our conscious minds. Birdsong at mid-day becomes absent and wildlife is holed up in a shady place, even in the deepest forest. And we become aware of the things that aren’t there; the things that we don’t realize we are missing until their absence becomes apparent.

We think of other times, cooler times on these same trails. And what’s not here in the heat of a summer’s day. Rounding the corner on Boulder Trail in Forest Park after hiking down from Owl Hoot and Twin Peaks… there’s no creek noise rushing up through the trees; Jackson Creek’s familiar rush dormant until winter rains return. The pileated woodpecker whose call and rat-a-tat jackhammer beak echoed through the streamside forests… quiet on this windless day, no echo in the canyon. Even the Pacific wren has closed his beak to the familiar song of the creekside thickets. The steady hum of honeybees laboring in the madrone and maple blossoms is replaced by the angry buzz of yellow jacket wasps and bald-faced hornets hunting moisture.

One forgets the tastes and the smells of the wet season that seemed so ubiquitous: the decaying leaves underfoot, subtle differences in the pungent stench of oak versus madrone, of alder versus maple. The fragrance of early spring’s manzanita bloom now a distant memory, perhaps overshadowed by June’s mock orange with its heady aroma, so much like actual citrus.

We even come to miss the sticky mud and slippery leaves along the trails, now replaced by choking dust. And the stinging frosty nip on exposed fingers, ears, and noses, or the clouds of vapor exhaled as we wind up the hillside trails. And the core-warming beverage that we treated ourselves to, after a day on the trails.

It’s not so much a yearning for days passed, but a recollection that once again the circle of seasons has brought us back to these longer, drier, warmer days. And here we are, going there, making tracks…