A few days ago I had one of "those experiences" that simply cannot be captured by a photograph, or painted onto a canvas. My fellow outdoor enthusiasts know what I mean. It's usually some phenomena that involves being at THAT place, at THAT very moment, and it is usually over as quickly as it starts. The "double-rainbow" guy certainly knows what I'm talking about.
I was in the woods on a late afternoon hike with the dogs. I have noticed that as we head into March, the after-work hikes no longer involve a double-time pace in order to get out of the woods before full darkness covers us. The angle of the sun's rays are changing, to the point that you can actually see and feel a difference. As the hike began (Miller Trek Trail, again), the sun was still dancing across the fallen leaves that make up the forest floor. The sunlight, still shining yellow down upon the trunks and the tops of the trees, was blazing brightly as I slipped into the forest.
After crossing a few streams and making my way uphill and across the powerline cut, the shadows from the still leafless trees had grown longer. With my back to the sun, I noticed that the groundcover was no longer privy to the warm glow It had been cast, just until sunrise, into the oncoming darkness. Then, I slowly realized that the bright light had faded altogether, making a gigantic leap from low-level light to the dullness of twilight.
I had climbed high enough on the ridge so that when I looked back, I could see that there was a bank of clouds hiding the sun. It was just a thin strip, but enough to block the rays from landing directly at my position. I turned and continued to head upward, deciding to allow Tobey to run off leash with his already loose companion Rocket. I struggled to keep pace with them.
After about five minutes of picking my foot falls carefully (my left knee's strength still being suspect), I sensed a glowing from up on the ridge above me, a very bright light. As I looked up in that direction, the most beautiful mixture of pink and purple was radiating all of the trees from mid trunk up into the naked branches at the top. I looked behind me and saw that the sun, much like a toddler that gets that second wind right before bedtime, was saying, 'Not just yet!'. It had found the last gap of clear sky between the cloudbank and the northern ridge of Ivylog Mountain.
Through that gap came pouring the light, picking up where it left off before, but so much more brilliant this time. Those colors in contrast with the already shadowed forest floor gave the groundcover an eerie, colorless gray, while the pink and purple combination made the upper half of the trees appear as though they were glowing embers. The phrase "For purple mountain majesties..." in America the Beautiful is what I was seeing, right in front of me. Maybe a very expensive camera, or an operator that really knew their f-stops and shutter speeds could capture what I was seeing, but I knew I couldn't. So, I simply watched.
I stood there trying to catch my breath as I watched the colorless gray slowly move up into the treetops nearest me. This continued like a giant blanket moving up the slope claiming the lower elevations first, then the middle ridge, and finally the highest ridge above, as they bid farewell to the sun.
The dogs stood panting on the trail about fifty yards ahead, waiting patiently for me to take a few steps in their direction. This would be the signal to lunge on ahead and find something good to sniff. Now that the bright light was gone, the subtle colors of the forest came back into view...the browns, the light yellows and grays, all reclaiming their positions. A cool wind began to fill the gap where the light was. I zipped the fleece up to my neck and continued on, hoping to avoid the next progression in the daily ritual of color change.
