The woods

There was a recent study that said walking in the woods is better for you than just walking, say, down a city street.

I have to believe that, as someone who tries to walk in the woods as much as possible. I figure I get out about 200 days a year, maybe a few more, and it never seems like enough.

It takes about a half hour of hiking in the woods to forget what was bothering you so much when you went in.

The trees absorb the worries and the angst and surround you with quiet. It doesn’t take a big patch of woods, either. A 100 acres or so, though the more, the better.

The best woods run along a stream or river, with a path on a ridge that gives you a good look at the water below.

The woods don’t necessarily have to be live trees, either. For a couple of years, I wandered around a patch of dead cottonwoods killed in the Moose Fire. The big bleached trees were rife with bird life and other four-legged creatures.

Eventually, though, they all tipped over in the wind and I quit going there. It was just too jackstrawed to get around.

This year we’ve hiked the Lake McDonald Trail more than ever, simply because it afforded good views of the Sprague Fire.

It’s an enjoyable walk on the north end, where at least some of the old cedar and hemlocks still survive. The south end is more doghair lodgepole, at least for the first couple of miles, and isn’t as interesting. Doghair lodegpole is about the least interesting woods there is, anyway. It’s just too thick.

Another favorite woods are aspens. The Red Eagle Lake Trail has some fine stands of young aspen woods for the first three miles or so. The North Fork has some real nice aspen stands as well.

But my all time favorite woods is about 26 miles into the Bob Marshall Wilderness. It’s a big stand of old-growth ponderosa pine. The trees tower above you and it’s a meadow underneath them. Two rivers come together here and the fishing is excellent.

I won’t tell you where it is, but I will say it’s worth every step to get there. The best woods are like that. Unforgettable, in every way.

Chris Peterson is the editor of the Hungry Horse News.