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Walking in a Wooded Winter Wonderland

© Stephen Strother

I have to admit that I am partial to warmer weather. I think that this stems from my school days as a child. The long hot summer in North Carolina also meant freedom. The day was mine. No getting up early to catch the school bus. No long days of going to class only to come home with hours of homework to work on. No peer pressure. In short, summer was my time to relax and therefore it was the time of year I looked forward to throughout the seasons.

I did not lose this love of the hot summer months when my schedule stopped revolving around the school year. As a young adult I continued to look forward to the longer and warmer days of summer even though my schedule necessitated that I work through most of them. For many years I was barely able to tolerate the harsher, more frigid days of winter (even with the considerably milder winters of the Southeastern United States). Some years I think the only thing that got me through the cold days of winter was the thought that spring and summer were not that far away.

Looking back, I remember that in my preteen years, although I still liked summer the most, I made the most of all seasons. Even though the days were colder, there were advantages to winter. Winter was a time for exploring the woods near our home in eastern North Carolina. Almost every weekend during the winter my younger brother and I (and sometimes some of our neighborhood friends) would spend hours exploring the forests, streams, ponds, and fields that bordered our neighborhood. We took advantage of this time because we knew that the colder breath of winter kept away such summer inhabitants of the woods as snakes, ticks, and even poison ivy.

A few years ago I rediscovered my childhood love of nature and with this refound love I again began to appreciate all the seasons for what they are. Winter is once again my favorite time of year to take nature walks in the woods. I still look forward to the lush vegetation of spring and summer and the colors of fall, but in the winter I enjoy the easier nature walks afforded by the lack of vegetation on the trees and underbrush.

Nature is reduced to the barest essentials in the winter. The trees have no leaves to cover their beautifully twisted and gnarled trunks. There are no flowers or fruits to distract my attention from the core of nature. A winter walk in the woods means listening to the wind whisper to me through the branches of the trees. It means listening to winter birds chirping to one another in the limbs above my head. On clear days it means gazing through the tree canopy overhead at the vivid blue sky. It means feeling the sharp cold edge of the wind as it blows against my cheek. On rare occasions in our part of North Carolina it means listening to the gentle sound of snowflakes brushing against my coat on their way to join millions of flakes before them on the snow covered forest floor. Quite simply, I have rediscovered that peaceful quiet that the woods have in winter.

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