Dawn, 8 - 10. The Path Disappears.

I haven't walked at all this summer. Partially, because I didn't feel like getting up at seven in the morning to walk and be ready for my classes by ten. And partially because I became a little lazy. Then, the month of September came with things to do and places to go, and the weather started to frown a little bit, so I stayed put until this week. When I returned to my old paths, I realized I should have taken a scythe with me.

Back at the beginning of June, the exuberance of late spring was beginning to create monsters of broom and twining brambles along most of the paths. I was the only one using them, it seemed, since the loggers had come through to clear the wood from the fire of 2019. So, the paths had mostly been abandoned for a year, more or less. Still, they were pretty much passable, just not in shorts, which was another reason I didn't go walking this summer. It gets too hot too soon walking in long pants. 

So, when I went along my usual paths to get to the principle tracks around the hill, I found myself facing a wall of green. With my walking stick, I tried to beat back some of the broom and avoided having the brambles wrap around me and pull me into the undergrowth. When I got to the top of the path I realized I had spent too much time just trying to beat through, and that I would have to find another way of getting up the hill. In places there were broom plants that had been knocked down, which made me think a tractor had tried to get through sometime this summer. Later, I realized it must have been the boars who had done it, either scratching themselves on the ground, or trying to dig up some tuber or other.

The principle track is also overgrown. Its luck is that it had been made very wide after the last fire, and from being a two tractor track, now it can still make room for one. But the broom has become enormous, and threatens to come crashing onto the track once next spring's growing season begins again. In places, too, the track has lost gravel and dirt, and large puddles appear when it rains, which are quite difficult to go around, precisely because of the overgrowth. 

No one goes into the woods anymore for anything. The paths are no longer used to go from one village to another. Once upon a time, it was faster to walk these woodsy paths to visit villages behind the hills, rather than walk all the way around on the tarmac roads. Now, it's much faster to take the car all the way around on the road than to walk the paths. These tracks and paths are much older than the roads that surround us. In fact, the path I have to abandon was probably one of the entrances to my village. Then, in the late nineteenth century, the main road that goes from Padrón, down the coast to Ribeira, around to Porto do Son, and up to Noia, was built to expedite travel times. The Camiño Real, the Royal Way, began to be abandoned, and now much of it is gone. 

Back in early spring I could still use Google Maps to orient myself and find tracks going in the direction I wanted. But those satellite pictures must have been taken in the months following the fire of 2019, and a lot of the woods were clear, with the tracks very obvious. When I tried to follow some of them, I discovered the track converted to a foot path about to disappear. If I try to go down some of them now, after a whole summer of uncontrolled growth, I won't be able to advance through the green wall.

I suppose we will have to wait for the next big fire to be able to walk down those abandoned paths, which is horrible. It's that or calling cleaning crews to clear them, which is not feasible, I suppose. And taking a scythe and an axe on my walk is not such a great idea, either. The earth is covering up the scars we've inflicted on her, but that makes it so much harder to explore her, too.

Life continues.