Forest road

“ We struggled over three miles of a glaring white shadeless road, grilled alive by the sun, but always comforting ourselves by dwelling on the cool shades awaiting us at the end of our journey. At length we reached the forest, and wandered into a green twilight under the dense canopy of leaves, which formed an unbroken roof a hundred feet over our heads. ”

“ Thus every traveller on a country road is surrounded by monuments more ancient, more impressive, and more beautiful than the ancient or modern world can show as the production of human hands.
He finds much enjoyment in the study of the forms and characteristics of the different trees by the wayside. If the road passes over highland, on a breezy day he can look down upon or across the tops of undulating forest trees, whose swaying movements remind him of the waves of the sea. ”

“ The road wound down to it through magnificent forest, where the tree-ferns expanded glorious fronds fifteen or twenty feet long, and everywhere grew a wealth of exquisite greenery. Strange new forms—new at least to our eyes—constantly attracted the attention. What the forest lacks in brilliancy of flowers, it gains in its wonderful variety of form. ”

“ Driving across the desert on a dark night is confusing to the most observant wayfarer. On either side, beyond the light of the car, illusory forest stands for mile upon mile. Up hill or down or across the level it is the same—a narrow, winding trail through dimly seen woods. The most familiar road grows strange; the miles are longer; you drive through mystery and silence and the world around you is a formless void.
Dawn and a gorgeous sunrise painted out the woods and revealed barren hilltops which Casey did not know. ”

“ The whole journey is alluring and picturesque, not to say thrilling. On one side of the road rises the towering uplift of the bulky mountain, its slopes bright in verdure and covered with heavy timber, masses of displaced rock and fallen trees. On the other sink immeasurable canyons, filled with a dense forest growth, thickets of chapparal and beds of luxuriant ferns. ”

“ You turn out of the high-road down a steep sandy track, with high banks overhung by hazel and spindlewood and oak-copse; the ground falls rapidly. Through gaps at the side you can see the high, sloping forest glades opposite, or look along lonely green rides which lead straight into the heart of silent woods. There has been as a rule no parsimonious policy of enclosure, and the result is that there are often wide grassy spaces beside the road, thick-set with furze or forest undergrowth, with here and there a tiny pool, or a little dingle where sandstone has been dug. ”

“ The brook wound among little hills which were also intersected by rough roads, green lanes, footpaths, and deserted trackways, watery, and hollow and dark. As the roads never went on level ground all were more or less deeply worn, and the overhanging beeches above and the descending naked roots made them like groves in a forest. When a road ran into another or crossed it there was a farm. ”

“ The road—if road it could be called—wound for the first five miles through the heart of an immense forest, and being, in every sense of the word, a by-path, was completely overshadowed by projecting branches of trees, so closely interwoven, as to prevent a single sunbeam from making its way, even at noon, within the arch. ”

“ The green roads that end in the forest
Are strewn with white goose feathers this June,
Like marks left behind by some one gone to the forest
To show his track. But he has never come back.
Down each green road a cottage looks at the forest.
Round one the nettle towers; two are bathed in flowers.
An old man along the green road to the forest
Strays from one, from another a child alone.
In the thicket bordering the forest,
All day long a thrush twiddles his song.
It is old, but the trees are young in the forest,
All but one like a castle keep, in the middle deep. ”

“ So remote and unfrequented is the forest that there is scarcely a road from end to end of its umbrageous length, for the trail made by the rough carts of the woodmen and charcoal burners could scarcely be dignified by the title of thoroughfare, and a few footpaths that wind about the glades are so faint and seldom used as to be scarcely distinguished from the undergrowth of ferny moss around. ”

“ And when some dozen or more of the crossroads marking the concessions which lead off to east and west have been passed, the road seems to strike into a different world. The forest loses its conquered appearance, and dominates everything. There is forest everywhere. It lines up close and thick along the road, and here and there quite overshadows it. It crowds in upon the little farms and shuts them off from one another and from the world outside, and peers in through the little windows of the log houses looking so small and lonely, but so beautiful in their forest frames. ”

“ For what reason have I this vast range and circuit, some square miles of unfrequented forest, for my privacy, abandoned to me by men? My nearest neighbor is a mile distant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within half a mile of my own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself; a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one hand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It is as much Asia or Africa as New England. ”

“ Let no one, however, think they know anything of the Forest by simply keeping to the high road and the beaten tracks. They must go into it, across the fern and the heather, and, if necessary, over the swamps, into such old woods as Barrow’s Moor, Mark Ash, Bushey Bratley, and Oakley, wandering at their own will among the trees. The best advice which I can give to see the Forest is to follow the course of one of its streams, to make it your friend and companion, and go wherever it goes. ”

“ CHAPTER XI. THE SHINGLE WEAVER'S.
The travellers walked on with fresh strength and courage, now that they thought they were in the right road. The road was, however, monotonous, being, for most of the way, through a dense forest; and it was so very similar to the road by which they had come the day before that they were convinced they were now right. ”

“ There is not a level yard of land—it is all as rough and unequal as it is possible for land to be.
The road is no macadamized way: it is simply a track that, in many parts, is barely visible except to practised eyes. Further on, where we pass through tracts of forest, the axe has cleared a broad path ”

“ Gradually the road forsakes the pretty valleys with their fields and streams, to take the summit of the hills and then be known as the "Ridge Road," which affords a wide range of vision not previously enjoyed, presenting scenes not to be found reproduced elsewhere with any degree of exactness. Looking into the depth of the forest as it slopes away on either side, the impression is of a magnificent park, undefaced by what are called improvements. ”

“ The road was smooth and well paved, now, and the country about was beautiful, so that the travelers rejoiced in leaving the forest far behind, and with it the many dangers they had met in its gloomy shades. ”

“ Around a bend the stream gradient steepens and so does the road. We are still in young forest; here it grows where cattle formerly grazed or lumbermen felled its giant ancestors. For some time we labor upwards, the road becoming a trail and a few big trees appearing along the tumbling creek. Then, rather suddenly, there is a striking difference in the environment. We have crossed the line into primeval forest, into territory where the axman has not been and most of the trees are big. ”

“ Our poor blown horses were loath to run, but we urged them to it. When we had covered half this open road, we took to the sod at the roadside to avoid raising a telltale cloud of dust. After a hard gallop we reached a forest where the road again left the river. ”

“ During the first few years of the settlements a path through the forest was all that was required. A low piece of ground, a steep precipice, or even a fallen tree, which would present no difficulty to the modern road-builder, might at the time have been deemed a sufficient cause for departing from the blazed trail. ”

“ A network of good roads is constructed in every forest to improve fire fighting activities as well as to afford better means of communication between towns, settlements and farms. The road and trail plan followed in the National Forests is mapped out years in advance. ”

“ The long, long road over the moors and up into the forest — who trod it into being first of all? Man, a human being, the first that came here. There was no path before he came. ”

“ As the eye follows this roadway to its distant part the sun lights up the sky, tingeing with a mellow light the group of small trees and willows, contrasting beautifully with the almost sombre tones of the dense forest in the middle distance. ”

“ The sun is new risen and the dew still glistens on the leaves of trees and the petals of flowers. A road like a grey ribbon thrusts into the quiet mountain gorge—a stone-paved road which yet looks as soft as velvet, so that one almost has a desire to stroke it. ”

“ The trail is a broad grass-grown path, not unlike a “ride” in an English wood, bordered by trees and thick undergrowth, but fairly lighted by the moonbeams, and, fortunately for us, rather downhill, with no obstacles more formidable than fallen branches, and here and there a prostrate monarch of the forest, which we easily surmount. ”

“ Fine but narrow roads wound along among the hills, free almost entirely of stone, and so smooth as to be safe for the most rapid driving, made of their rich, dark, powder-looking soil. Beautiful villages or scattered settlements breaking upon the delighted view, on the meandering way, making the ride a continued scene of excitement and admiration. The air fresh, free, and wholesome; the road almost dead level for miles and miles, among mountains that lay over the land like the great swells of the sea, and looking in the prospect as though there could be no passage. ”

“ Then, again the road would run for a considerable distance through an open space, unshaded by trees, to cross, a little further on, another belt of woods, thus making their darkened recesses doubly grateful from the contrast of alternating light and shade, while all along the stream murmured a soft expression of thanks for the lovely country it irrigated, for the blue sky, that mirrored itself in its bosom with floating clouds, for the sunshine sparkling on its ripples, and for the overhanging woods, and birds, that sung among the branches. ”

“ The road winds up the mountains gently for some miles, then more abruptly, and we presently find ourselves in the midst of dense redwood and pine forests, and breathing the pure resinous air of the mountain woods, with only the well-graded road, and here and there a rough clearing, to remind us of civilization and our fellow-man. The trees where the lumber-man's axe has not done its infamous work stand thickly as the grain in a field,—almost,—and as tall and straight in proportion. ”

“ The mountain is steep, the road is edged with trees. There are the wild-cherry, evergreens, and clumps of ancient shrub-oak. The road is now unused; few pass over it, save it be the shepherds who take their flocks from the high pastures of one mountain range to those of another. What once had been ruts made by the wheels of wagons are now changed by rain and flood into deep-cut gullies. It is a place where, in the spring time, the air is fragrant from millions of snow-white blossoms, and where now on the branches of the cherry, hang clusters of crimson fruit. The piece of road is historic. ”

“ To one who will take the trouble to recall the variety of woods, thickets, and jungles that go to make up a wooded country—especially in the creek bottoms where a logging road finds often its levelest way—and the piles of windfalls, vines, bushes, and scrubs that choke the thickets with a discouraging and inextricable tangle, the clearing of five miles to street width will look like an almost hopeless undertaking. ”

“ In a country that has been lumbered over old trails and woods roads should be followed down hill as the lowlands and water courses are the invariable destination of logs and these old trails and tote roads usually guide the traveler to some lumber camp or clearing from which a well defined road is apt to lead. ”

“ And yet the forest has been civilised throughout. The most savage corners bear a name, and have been cherished like antiquities; in the most remote, Nature has prepared and balanced her effects as if with conscious art; and man, with his guiding arrows of blue paint, has countersigned the picture. After your farthest wandering, you are never surprised to come forth upon the vast avenue of highway, to strike the centre point of branching alleys, or to find the aqueduct trailing, thousand-footed, through the brush. It is not a wilderness ”

“ And year after year the old road grows dimmer, and the grass gets green across the track, and it is rechristened "the long pasture," and is surrendered to the lowing herds and the singing birds. In the midst of a region humming with life, it alone is silent, and almost awakens human sympathy, so wandering and lost and desolate it is. ”