As the days grow shorter and evenings become more chill, the crowds of fair-weather hikers thin out. So I’ve been walking the local woodland trails more often. A favorite path leads me through a garden rich in the delicate wildflowers known as touch-me-nots, or jewelweed:

The flower stalks grow as high as my shoulders here, attracting countless insects. Songbirds and small mammals find plenty to eat, as well. Before long, I emerged from the woods into a clearing. Beyond that point, the trail widens and continues on toward the town road. This wider track has been badly scarred by ATVs, whose riders have left the usual mementos of their passing: crushed beer cans, broken bottles, food wrappers, and discarded oil cans. The wild creatures who call the woodland home can’t move to a quieter neighborhood, of course. So they cope as best they can. And as I continued along the rutted track, I noticed a barely perceptible stirring in a patch of scraggly grass that the wreckreationists had somehow spared. I looked closer and saw a mole going determinedly about his business, pink nose quivering. He—I’ll call him a “he,” anyway—was a colorful fellow, too, with a white muzzle, forefeet, and tail.

He didn’t stop to talk. He had places to go and things to do, and before I’d had a chance to snap more than a couple of pictures, he’d vanished into the taller grass at the forest’s edge. Luckily, no ATVs were tearing up and down the trail just then. (For the most part, their drivers are nocturnal, scurrying back to their solitary dens with the first rays of the morning sun.) So the chickadees and the pileated woodpecker could chatter and hammer undisturbed. For now. But the brief calm would soon be broken. The hours of daylight are getting shorter, and the creatures of the night were already waking from their fitful slumbers.

Gentlemen, start your engines…

How many of us take the time to look beyond the beauty strip? And how many of us really want to? After all, it can be downright painful to see what lies just outside the frame of the photos in the tourist board’s brochures. But if you ride a bike along the highway, hike less-traveled trails, paddle on public waterways, or just walk the city streets to do your shopping and pick up the mail, then you really can’t avoid seeing what lies in front of your eyes, can you? And maybe that’s a good thing.

In any event, we think it’s worth the effort. To that end, Tamia Nelson’s Outside will take another look “Beyond the Beauty Strip” every month. And any number can play. So if you have an example that you’d like to share, please send it along.

 
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It’s often difficult for me to wrench myself away from The River, with its dramatic falls and tranquil pools, but the bordering woodlands have an allure all their own. So I made the most of a cool day not long ago, climbing away from The River on herd paths and side trails in search of subjects for my lens. I wasn’t disappointed.

I kept climbing, following an informal trail that I knew would take me to a seasonally maintained dirt road. As I crested the last rise, the trail opened up into a clearing. Formerly a staging area for logging operations, this opening in the woods boasted a profusion of berry bushes—a favorite spot for berry-pickers of every species, including man. No longer, however. The canes of the berry bushes had been stripped bare of their leaves by the passing and repassing of ATVs and trail bikes, and in the now-barren heart of the clearing was a large fire ring.

Spent shot shells covered the ground, and…

Tangles of rusty wire were everywhere.

So the despoiled berry patch had become a sort of temple to Adirondack North Country ideals of beauty, with the fire ring serving as high altar, an evocative heap of ash, plastic trash, partially burned paper, charred wood, and still more wire—heaps and heaps of wire.

And the high altar of this sylvan temple is a truly impressive structure, nearly 30 feet wide at its widest point and almost three feet high. The congregation of worshippers have every reason to be proud of their handiwork.

But the wire continued puzzle me. Not for long, however. I realized that I was looking at a blending of two religio-aesthetic elements: one or more burnt-out innerspring mattresses and a large number of incinerated steel-belted radial tires. I applied my somewhat rusty anthropological skills to deciphering the underlying rituals, but beyond noting that the bedsprings and tire belts were emblematic of two activities sacred to nearly all North Country indigenes, I was left with little except fruitless speculation. The details of this newly-discovered, contemporary pyrolatric cult must await more expert analysis than I can bring to bear.

Abandoning my attempt to reconstruct the cult’s ritual life from their charred artifacts, I continued on my way through the woods. Soon the fire-pit altar was no more than a discordant recollection.

Avid cyclist and kayaker Mark, of Spokane, Washington, was inspired to write about this month’s “Beyond the Beauty Strip.” I couldn’t agree more with his sentiments:

Your question about how many of us want to look “beyond the beauty strip” reminded me of a quote that I once read regarding Ansel Adams’ photography. “It’s not that there aren’t empty beer cans in his photographs, it’s just that he chose not to see them”. His were powerful images and it kind of makes you wonder what kind of impact they would have had if he had chosen to see a few empties.

How many of us take the time to look beyond the beauty strip? And how many of us really want to? After all, it can be downright painful to see what lies just outside the frame of the photos in the tourist board’s brochures. But if you ride a bike along the highway, hike less-traveled trails, paddle on public waterways, or just walk the city streets to do your shopping and pick up the mail, then you really can’t avoid seeing what lies in front of your eyes, can you? And maybe that’s a good thing.

In any event, we think it’s worth the effort. To that end, Tamia Nelson’s Outside will take another look “Beyond the Beauty Strip” on the third Monday in every month. And any number can play. So if you have an example that you’d like to share, please send it along.

 
Send a Comment

Pleasant Mound. That’s a good name for a cemetery, isn’t it? Conjures up images of a properly bucolic final resting place, with a songbird chorus celebrating each new dawn and a gentle breeze whispering through the treetops. And the view from the road doesn’t belie the promise.

I came in search of two lonely graves, tucked into a hollow along the boundary of the county forest. I hadn’t been able to find out who was buried there, and I hoped to photograph the stones in order to facilitate further inquiries. A dirt road loops around the back of the cemetery. I followed it as it climbed gently. Then, just as I crested the hill, I was greeted with this sight:

I’ve pieced this panorama together from several wide-angle photos, which explains the unusual perspective and the stitch lines. The cemetery proper is just out of sight to my right, with the nearest maintained graves at the top of the hill. The two gravesites I’d been seeking are hidden behind chest-high brambles, on the left of the panoramic photo. To their right, you can just see an informal dump for household refuse and garden waste trash, the whole scene dominated by a denuded hillside, a relic of heedless logging.

I started down the hill, wading through the brambles and swatting deerflies, very glad I was wearing heavy hiking pants and sturdy boots. I paused halfway to shoot a second panorama:

You can just see the periphery of the informal dump on the left. I was tired of doing battle with the brambles, so I changed tack, continuing downslope through an apparently open area, carpeted in leaves.

It was a bad decision. The leaves weren’t so much a carpet as a trap. I sank to my knees, while branches buried deep beneath the surface snatched at my feet and ankles. I staggered and lurched back toward the brambles, but not before I shot this picture:

The object on the left is a discarded mattress and box spring, surrounded by more grass clippings, leaves, and pruned branches. Plus plastic flowers in plastic flowerpots, several broken statuettes, paper cups and plastic plates from a picnic, and scraps of plastic sheeting. My long lens captured this pleasantly bucolic scene:

I turned away and headed toward my ultimate destination. More brambles lay in my path. By the time I reached the two lonely graves, my legs were bleeding freely, despite my pants’ heavy fabric.

Here I found the small gravestones that I sought, lost among the brambles. One bore the bronze emblem of the G.A.R., marking the final resting place of a veteran of the Union Army.

I shot a few more photos and spent some time with the graves, trying unsuccessfully to decipher the faded markings on their weathered stones. I was no closer to learning why they were set apart from all the others. Finally I pushed back into the brambles and up the hill, my original plan to walk out through the country forest thwarted by a seemingly impenetrable barrier of logging slash, the legacy of a recent clear-cut.

The sun shone down unabated, and the cool morning air was invigorating, but I couldn’t shake the pall of melancholy that had first descended on me while I fought my way down to the two lonely graves. Then I saw this:

More trash, dumped along the roadside within sight of the town transfer station, free of charge to all residents. And the crowning touch? This…

I stared at the discarded toy for a long time, wondering who it had belonged to and how it had ended up here, a rotting discard among the emerging Canada mayflowers. Pleasant Mound didn’t seem at all pleasant now.

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, the things you find when you look behind the concealing curtain can be painful. Still, if you ride a bike, hike, or paddle, or even if you just walk to the store to do your shopping, you can’t help but see what lies before you. And that’s not really such a bad thing, is it?

We’d like to encourage everyone to open their eyes and look around them. To that end, every third Monday of each month you’ll find a new “Beyond the Beauty Strip” feature at Tamia Nelson’s Outside. But don’t make us do all the work. If you have an example of something hidden from view that you think ought to be brought into the light, please send it along. It’s bound to be an eye-opening experience.

 
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