the White Quarry (haibun)

Thanks, Sharon, for the pic of the white quarry - that's my name for it as well. I used to often enjoy hiking back there in the winter, but several winters ago I found several traps within feet of the trail. One small trap had a fisher hanging from it, the other was a huge bear or wolf trap baited with a deer carcass. Chase found the deer's stomach, & was chewing away on it, which is how I found the trap.

 
Chase enjoys
a natural haggis:
bear bait!


If you follow the trail due south (straight) past the white quarry for about 12 or 15 minutes, you come to a series of large linked beaver ponds. I call the first one 'shaman bay', as all kinds of mystic looking shapes form in the ice there.

 
my shaman sign
repeats over and over
in the cracking ice

 
shotgun shells
the only human sign
on the small island



The trail also splits to the west by the white quarry. About 10 minutes along, after you pass thru a pine plantation, you reach a mountain stream, which is difficult to cross except in the dryness of summer.

Also some young guys built a hunt camp cabin just across from the white quarry a couple of years ago. One of them left a box of live rounds on the porch railing - scary.

It's beautiful back there in the winter - your pic makes me want to go there with Chase soon.

Another interesting site - after you crest the hill walking south past the white quarry, there's an elevated meadow on your left (east). If you cross it to the rusty barbed wire fence, there's a huge old mine 'box canyon' carved out below - the first time I saw it I thought of the Cumberland gap  ;  )

peace & poetry power!
Chris ... & Chase Wrffffffzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz  (still napping)