Coontree Mountain

Now shall I walk

or shall I ride?

"Ride," Pleasure said.

"Walk," Joy replied.

- W.H. Davies

We're starting out earlier than usual. But a blanket of oppressive heat wraps around us as we emerge from our car at the trail head for Coontree Gap Loop. This humid steam is not the dry, windy heat we've pushed against in hikes out west. This makes me wonder if I'm breathing. Is anything going in? I work harder for air.

The hike isn't that long. Surely we can sweat through it. I'm prepared for sweat. Hair pulled back. Two drink bottles. Lean cotton clothes. I've decided it doesn't matter how wet I get.

The woods look cool and misty. Never mind this mist is actually warm haze. At ten in the morning, dew still lingers on the ground. Nowhere for it to go.

We cross the road and find the trail. Our feet thrum along the brown earthy path by a creek, melting into the forest, blending our bodies into the ravine. It takes us in and we begin our ascent.

For the next hour we climb. Several times, I pause because I can't get enough air. I have to remind myself that I'm getting oxygen. Yes, the lungs work. Trust it. The trail winds up and up, endless. Several times I trip on tree roots, slip on damp ground, almost slide down over the edge. I feel dizzy. How far would I go before a tree stopped me?

When I pause for a drink, sweat runs down my skin like rivers flowing and drips from my chin. There is nothing but wetness on this side of the hike: wetness and steam and labored breath.

Can it be, at last? Yes. We reach the summit, turn a corner into the gap, and swing back toward our trail head. Grace rustles on a breeze across the ridge, born on hands of shimmering trees. There is a sudden sense of Presence in the air. I know it from a hundred other hikes. It's nearly tangible, almost a scent. We are not alone.

I pause to take in the green bowl beneath us. Lush woods born by a warm, rainy summer recall a childhood book on rain forests, whispering adventure. The trail winding through is a brown velvet ribbon curling against the slope as mist rises from a chuckling creek. This is a chalice, filled to the brim with green, with life and joy. Rocks glisten with gold dust, catching the morning sun and sending it spinning through rhododendron arches. Tree trunks soar to the sky blue ceiling above us -- columns in a sanctuary. Plants I can't name grow here. A mushroom like mustard foam. A hundred mosses with tiny shapes of trees, stars, and cushions. Ferns lie in a sea of green feathers. Heart-shaped leaves are scattered across the floor like love notes left by the wind.

I'm ravished by green and wet and blue, by yellow flowers along our brown velvet ribbon, and songs of birds echoing, bouncing off the slopes. A cardinal sends his high chip, chip, chip winging through the forest. This is his space, not ours. He wants us to know.

I think of dancing like David before the Ark of the Covenant, before the Holy, before the Creator of all. I catch myself. No, no. That would never do. What would happen if I were left out here in this wilderness for weeks? I might never return to my right mind.

We begin our descent from the heights, back to the world of men. Across the ridge, we walk along a backdrop of distant mountains, aquamarine, mysterious, folded one upon another. I could go there.

I could keep going and never come back.

Strain, climb, rock, and root. Leaf, blade, blossom, and boot on soft ground. The Holy has been here and made this for us: climbing, pushing, claiming the view. He has made it for us. But we must walk among it ourselves.

So I sing. I sing hallelujah and amen. I sing as I wind my way down into it, into finding and knowing, into becoming new.