How many of us take the time to look beyond the beauty strip? How many of us really want to? Aren’t many of us, much of time, content to avert our eyes? After all, what you find around and beyond the strip of natural beauty can be painful. If you ride a bike on our public roads, hike the trails, walk to do your shopping and pick up mail, or paddle on public waterways, then maybe you’re less likely to look the other way.

I’d like to encourage everyone to look through the beauty strip. To that end, every third Monday Outside Up North will publish a new Beyond the Beauty Strip feature. Here’s this month’s edition.

 
Winter’s deep snowpack and slick ice has finally melted in the wooded hills overlooking The River, which runs high and lively over the stepped falls. I hiked along a ridge and enjoyed the view through leafless trees, and stopped to listen to the rapids’ roar.

 

 
The air was cool and scented with woodland musk and the tang of the river’s spray, even this far away from the water. It’s good to look upon a landscape coming alive in spring. And then a glint of light in my peripheral vision caught my attention:

 

 
What was it? Nothing reflective should be on the forest floor, yet something winked in the brilliant sun. And then I saw it again as I shifted position, and squatting down, realized what it was:

 

 
It was an empty beer can, a special “hunter’s edition” of Busch. The camouflaged can is not wholly invisible, though—the brand name is in blazing hunter orange. Is the company making it possible to drink beer without detection? Or is the idea to make it easier for the litterbug to leave a trail of empties that will blend in with the fallen leaves? Either way, the stealth tactic didn’t work.

 
Send a Comment