Written by Matt, Crew Leader 2019
When I first met you not too long ago, I journeyed from the top of that old ridge Haoe.
You cut me deep with your thorny brush and threw me down the steep ravines of old Haoe.
I had had enough, bruised and beaten I made the climb back up, back out, but what did I find?
Thunder and lightning and pounding rain along the ridge line. I lumbered away as fast as I could rueing the day I was destined to return.
I dried off and collected, healed up and headed to the north end of your trail to try the walk again.
Oh, but you were well defended.
A wall of wet brush, fresh with cold dew pushing me constantly as I struggle to move through.
Down, down, down, to my hands to my knees, but not to the creek so very very far below you.
By the tips of my toes I scrape myself by not for too long as I turn around with a shiver and little, quiet cry.
Some time passes by as it will often do and I thought to myself I’m on the mend I think that I should hike Slickrock again.
So this time I try from ol’ Big Fat. It drops from on high right to the heart of Slickrock Creek. I dreamed of a trail that meandered along the edge of the water as it snakes all along. I found its heart true nature of the trail it’s potential and promise as a walk in the woods that we’re more jungle I’d say and more wild than most of the places we have left to us today.
The trail wanders gently this way and that, it slithers slowly to the north and the south to the climb of a lifetime or an epic dance on a high line through bridges and brush.
The footpath is narrowed by snowberry fields and broken shade skies. Cumulus clouds and fall oaken stands to fly you away.
To some foreign land in a long forgotten day.
The trees seem much larger the flowers more varied. It feels like it’s wild, it feels like it is all mine.
There’s no footprints or people only the birds and bees and the sound of deep water as it rumbles through rocks and over cascades.
Clear as an eyeglass the water erodes the old granite rock exposing a pattern of quartz and iron ores.
It feels ancient yet malleable as it changes at every turn of the trail and tilt of the earth.
While the entrance is steep, the gate dangerous and hidden, the center is pure golden.
And that is why my Slickrock, you’re the trail for me.❤️