Hike got year off to soaring start

It’s called a First Day hike.
That’s because you take the hike on Jan. 1, the first day of the year.
I’m not sure when I took my first one.
It may have been 10 years ago or thereabouts.
All I know is, it was cold.
And everyone else in the house thought I was crazy.
But for some reason, that New Year’s Day, I woke up wanting to take a hike, no matter how cold it was.
I felt the need to clear my head, to get away from the mental clutter and junk, and I figured that getting in touch with nature — no matter what the temperature — was the right way to go about it.
That first year, I went alone. As I said, everyone else in the house thought I was crazy.
And it was great.
Sure, I was freezing. January winds were whipping around painfully.
But I was alone. I connected with the natural world. And I came back renewed, refreshed and ready to face the year ahead.
Oddly enough, it didn’t become an annual thing.
Some years it seemed important. Other years it didn’t.
And it wasn’t always a solitary event. Connie has come with me a time or two. Even then, we don’t talk much when we’re out there on the First Day. Instead, we listen. We look. We get a better sense of where we fit into the scheme of things.
Thursday, the two of us headed up to the Loblolly Wetlands Nature Preserve.
We bundled up, though I’d hiked in colder conditions. Still, long johns and extra layers made sense. So did my down parka, which I’ve had for roughly 20 years. Connie opted for earmuffs. I wore a wool cap (remembering conversations with my old friend Jay Miller: “Where’s your hat?”) and had a balaclava tucked in my pocket if the wind was too fierce.
As we drove out, I wondered if anyone else would be there.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources has been promoting First Day hikes in state parks the past several years. There was one that I knew of at Oubache State Park in Wells County, but for me that First Day is best addressed in ones and twos, not in groups.
I was pleased, then, when we found the parking lot on county road 250 West north of Ind. 18 empty. It would be just the two of us.
We headed east, through the sedge fields toward the pond and the woods, listening to the wind in the trees and the music made by the rustling grasses. Then we took what’s called the Upland Trail, though it’s only hilly by Jay County standards. It wound north and east up through the woodlands beyond the pond.
Before we’d gone far, we flushed some deer. One at first, then two, then a third and finally a fourth. They headed south out of our way.
A couple more were flushed as we made our way out of the woodlands and back to the path that goes around one section of wetlands.
The last time we’d been out that way the path was muddy and mucky, but this time it was frozen, so we extended the hike and wandered around the lowland.
As we went, the birds announced our arrival: Sparrows, cardinals and blue jays.
Nothing special to anyone with a backyard bird feeder.
Then, for some reason, I paused to look to my left.
We were walking between the wetland and the Loblolly Ditch. Technically, it may be the Loblolly Creek, but at that point it is simply a ditch.
I looked down into the ditch to my left and saw it: Roughly 12 feet away, a great blue heron stood in the flowing water. Maybe he was dozing. Maybe he was watching for lunch to go swimming by.
At any rate a second or two after I saw him, he became aware of me. And he unfolded those magnificent wings and stretched up toward the sky above the ditch and took flight.
And I stood there, camera around my neck with its lens cap on, my jaw dropped and mouth agape.
And I remembered why a First Day hike can be such a good, good thing.