THE SEARCH FOR PONCHO’S GOLD
{from the archives, 1996)
August ‘95, during the trail marking ceremony, the one for the Savoy 20 Mile Trail Race. Race director "Poncho" , Joe G and Joe Z picked me and my trusty canine companion "Dusty" up for blazing duties in Joe's shiny pickup.
Trouble began immediately upon dropping Joe and Joe Jr. off at Tower 51, when Poncho asked me to grab something out of his pocket. As I reached into his pants, feeling kinda goofy about it, he told me that he meant the pocket to his backpack. Oh well.
The rest of the day went better, walking the course, and seeing it's dryness, had both of us assured that if anybody decent showed up, the course record would be busted.
Well, it did and so did just about every other age group record on that day. This is when it went funky for me. Poncho asked me for his special container, the one he had me grab from his pocket the day before. Uh oh. I had just finished the 20 miles minutes ago and he was asking me for an elixir I couldn’t remember being responsible for. With tears in my eyes I told our President it was vanished, gone, forgotten.
Time passed by. Fall went and Winter came and with it massive snow falls. I had the elixir on my mind. I wanted to find it, if it meant traveling to the ends of the earth. Or at least Savoy.
The only way to get into the woods at this time of year would be with snowshoes. Big ones. Tubbs supplied the shoes, me the fuel. I checked the topo map, figured I could trek up the Hoosac Range from Adams, via Little Egypt. Hadn't been in it's wilderness since 1978. It would put me in the right proximity.
Leaving my folk’s house, I walked the pavement 1/4 mile to the snowmobile trail I knew so well as a youth. Put on the snowshoes and enjoyed the ease of running on a packed trail. Down I plummeted, crossing the Tophet Brook and seeing the trail head over to my Uncle's barnyard. This wasn't right. I needed to climb the mountain to the top, all the way to High Bridge. I couldn't believe that snowmobiles would bypass a wonderful mountain trail, surrounded by pines and hemlocks, to scoot through a barnyard and up a now paved road!! At least in the old days the road was rutted and dirt and never plowed in winter. Wimps. That's all it could be. With the price of Snowmobiles approaching cars, the people riding them must have got soft too.
Dusty and I scooted across the crooked bridge, he very delicately, to begin the climb up the mountain. No snowmobiles had been through, causing the depth of snow to reach mid-thigh.
The snowshoes were a lifesaver, but slowed me down to a crawl as I struggled up the side of this hill. My dog bounced from shoe hole to shoe hole, looking at me in disbelief every hop of the way.
2/3 into the climb I found out why no sleds had passed. A huge tree had fallen across the path, one side a steep bank rising upward, the other side a sheer cliff dropping straight down. No way for the sleds to get around, trouble for my companion and me. We used all our remaining strength to get ourselves around this obstacle, me pulling the dog by his collar at times as he dug in with all four wheels, churning and spinning wildly in the three-foot powder. Finally busting through around to the other side, happily seeing fresh packed snowmobile tracks lying molded into the snow. Hip Hip Hooray!
Now we could make up some time as I glanced at my watch approaching the 55-minute mark. "This snowshoeing was no walk in the park," I said aloud as I removed soaked wool hat and gloves from my perspired body. The easiness of running on a packed trail was a welcome change from breaking trail up the side of a mountain that climbed 650' in less than a mile, but perhaps not as pleasing.
Being in an area that hadn't been disturbed by fellow man, snow untouched except by occasional animal tracks zigzagging across the narrow path I was at the time making, was both hypnotic and spiritual to me. Time passes both quickly and slowly, occurring simultaneously within my body and soul. Nothing exists but my footsteps in the three feet of snow. Tiredness is a prerequisite for this state. It leads to a deep relaxation that borders on self-meditation. Only when one travels outside the bond and restrictions of day to day grinding within communities and rat races everywhere can that person experience life in it's simplest form: breaths, sight, sounds and feeling within your own temple.
I ran on past High Bridge to an open, swampy area on top of the mountain I recognized as part of the Savoy Mountain 20 Miler. A few steps down a pine tree lined section of trail introduced me to Brown Road, and with joy realized that from here I could end up anyplace I wanted in Western Mass!!
How lucky I was to have found these connecting paths within this forest. I also realized how lucky I was to be able to have with me on most every adventure a running partner who never criticizes, complains, or whines. Most of all I was both lucky and happy to have found Poncho's magic elixir.
All can find the potion; it's there for each and every one of us. The elixir is the peacefulness you will feel when you are "out there" on a journey in your own wilderness, wherever that may be. The wonderful aspect of trail running is that you can reach a point where the trail exist in your heart and mind, no one anywhere can take that from you. You will have reached the true Zenith. I had found "PEACE" that day. Poncho is kind enough to leave a bunch of it sprinkled along the Savoy Mountain course each year for others to discover. It is there for the taking, stop by and treat yourselves.
{02/01/96}