The first surprise was the creek’s unexpected width.
My guidebook had said 80 to 100 feet. Then, I couldn’t see
where to pick up the trail on the other side, and didn’t want to be
aimlessly splashing back and forth over there with
forty pounds on my back, clueless about where to climb out.
And where were the rocks? I’d imagined hopping, boulder
to boulder. What I saw was a sheet of jumpy, fast water
that would mean a mid-calf to knee-deep ford, no doubt.
So, I sat, took off my boots, tied them to my pack,
rolled my socks into a ball, and stuffed it deep into a pocket,
velcroed sandals tightly—stalling—still taken back
by what I’d not foreseen, then eased onto a submerged rock (it
held without wobble) and started sloshing toward a gap
in the far bank’s brush through a rippling wash of whitecap.
Charles Weld is a retired mental health counselor/administrator, now working part-time in an agency treating youth, He lives in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.