Non-fiction / Hiking
This is a guest post by Marielle Ebersol. Please see the author’s links if you enjoyed this piece.
I was on the trail at five o’clock this morning, an hour before sunrise. As I climbed up the first ridge I stopped multiple times so that I could lean my head back and look up at the stars. They are still so brilliant at that early hour and I love hiking early enough to…
…catch a glimpse of them. I love laying on the first bench and gazing up at them while they are still out. I allow my eyes to adjust to the dark and for the next hour I watch as the sky begins to change color and the beautiful landscape is slowly revealed to me bit by bit. For the first hour of my hike I have the mountains all to myself. Occasionally someone else is on the trail before me but most of the time I am the first to arrive. I prefer it that way.
As I climb up along the ridge I watch as great horned owls fly over me (I saw three this morning!) and bats dance in the sky as they search for their breakfast. This morning I listened to crickets and cicadas as they serenaded my hike. The call of the common poor will is still typical that early in the morning and I love listening as they call out to one another. They always remind me of the whip-poor-wills I heard growing up at our mountain house in Connecticut.
I have been keeping my eyes open for bobcats and mountain lions but I haven’t seen a glimpse since my two encounters last month. I still cannot believe they happened! Last week I did see several mule deer along the opposite ridge before the sun came over the mountains. I always see their footprints and it is rare to come across them. I heard them before I saw them and I kept combing my surroundings with my eyes to see what I could spot. Suddenly there they were standing alert gazing back at me from across the way. The morning I saw them on the ridge I also saw a doe and her fawn an hour and a half after sunrise. It is always such a gift to observe any wild life as I hike and I am always eager to see what I might discover in the early morning hours. I am already looking forward to my hike tomorrow morning.
Marielle Ebersol is a writer and yoga teacher with several works and articles that you can read online at her substack here. Please be sure to check out her other work there if you enjoyed this piece.
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