Hike was a good first step to 2016

All I remember for sure is that it was cold. Very, very cold.
For some reason, several years ago, I woke up on New Year’s Day convinced that the best way to mark the beginning of another 12 months on the calendar was to take a hike.
The temperature was, as I recall, hovering around zero. And the wind out of the west was brutal. But I was possessed by the idea of a hike.
Not surprisingly, when I proposed the idea, no one wanted to join me. In fact, the rest of the household seemed to be of the opinion that I needed to have my head examined.
So I set out alone, and I have to tell you it was a wonderful, meaningful way to start the year. The sky was clear, the snow crunched underfoot, and the solitude seemed to center me the way a potter centers a lump of clay on a potter’s wheel.
When I got home, I babbled about it, how good it had felt to connect with nature, with the elements, even with that brutal wind.
So now, although it’s not an annual thing, most years a First Day hike is part of the January ritual. (Turns out, I’m not the only one who enjoys the experience; First Day hikes are a fixture at many state parks these days.)
And these days, my wife often comes with me. That’s probably because I babbled so much about it when I came back from the first one.
If she senses that I need some time alone or if the weather is particularly uninviting, she’ll pass.
But this year, the two of us set out on New Year’s Day together, hoping to get 2016 off on the right foot.
Connie’s proposal was to hike some new trails in the wetlands just off the Jay-Adams county line. We’d helped plant trees in that area for Friends of the Limberlost several years ago and hadn’t been back.
But the prospect wasn’t very inviting. We parked her CRV in a little stone lot that was exposed on all sides. Wind — the kind with teeth that seem to bite into your spine — blew unstoppable out of the west. It had been rainy, but the ground was now frozen over. After about 20 yards, we ran into an obstacle.
A puddle, about a foot deep, stretched across the trail and connected with the adjacent ditch on one side and a pond-like area on the other. Ice around the puddle made it tough to judge, but we finally agreed it was impassable and headed back to the car.
What we needed, clearly, was a hike with a little more protection from the wind. I suggested the Bibler Preserve, an ACRES property in Pike Township, but Connie said she’d prefer the Bell-Croft Preserve, along county road 300 South not far from Como.
As expected, when we pulled up at Bell-Croft, we were the only ones there. The First Day experience hadn’t drawn a crowd.
At Bell-Croft, you hike a wooded fencerow back to a woods with a splendid stand of beech trees. The trail is well-marked but little-used. We’d been out there in the summer, but the mosquitoes had been fierce and made the hike not much fun.
This time, of course, there were no mosquitoes. There was wind, but the trees provided enough cover that we could follow the loop trail through the trees at a leisurely pace. More than once, we just stopped and listened. Birds moved through the highest branches, looking down on us as interlopers.
The trail headed north, then looped to the east, then back to the west, connecting with the path back to the fencerow.
In all, it took us about 40 to 45 minutes. That’s time together, time with nature, time outside, time moving the old joints, time reflecting on the year past and the year ahead, and time listening to the trees as the wind blew through.
All in all, a great way to start the year.