Looking in New Directions

The last three days of 2011 were days to remember. The weather was unusually warm, breezy but sixty and sending the heart skipping on ahead to spring although the head knows that winter simply hasn’t arrived yet. So not to waste a warm minute, my friend and I decided to take a hike in West Tyson Park. 

We never take long hikes but prefer to get off the beaten path and into the woods shaking the bushes a bit even in the midst of winter when wildlife is scarce and wildflowers sleeping. That is not to say that the woods weren’t green they were! The mosses were filling the void covering the stones with a brilliant chartreuse in a sea of dry dead brown.

The stones grew larger as we went, forming rock walls and ledges along steep hillside and lay scattered down the slope wherever they landed after the long roll, long, long ago.

Besides the mosses, we found mineral deposits growing beneath the rocky ledges. I’m still waiting for my cave friends to tell me what they are… We also found some unusual mushrooms and pretty  common fungi that are still interesting to me.

Although the landscape was really steep and covered with a thick blanket of leaves hiding treacherous terrain, we climbed down the hillside and went exploring, finally ending up walking along a little creek which was nearly dry but dripping consistently over moss covered rocks and puddling on flat beds of rock.

Winter landscapes seem barren at first glance, but the sparseness of the vegetation can work to your advantage providing new venues for observation. The naked branches open space which reveal beautiful vistas. The dead brush clears new directions for exploring, and the poisonous plants and pests are all sleeping, thank goodness. Perhaps though, the best way winter works is to shift your focus and force you to look in new directions for discoveries. In my own experience the result has been fascinating, and so it was on this day.  As we scanned the stream and rummaged through rocks, everywhere we looked there were fossils.

* Just a note: Usually you are not allowed to take fossils from a public park.

And so, our finds were fascinating. I’m afraid though I don’t know much about  prehistoric eras nor  fossils.  I do know that during the Mississippian age, much of Missouri was covered by warm, shallow seas.  It seemed that most of what we found were the fossils of shells and other water creatures and plants. Perhaps I will start studying more about fossils.

The hike back was pleasant.  We saw an old rock wall at the boundary of the park. There is no end to the rock in this state ;). The day ended with a beautiful sunset, and I couldn’t help but think how fortunate it was to have the sun and warm winds on the winter landscape these last days of 2011.