If ever I earned a Girl Scout badge for orientation, way-finding, or navigation--whatever following a marked trail was called in the mid-1970s--I need to hand it back.  Somehow or other, I managed to stay on a well-marked, worn trail with my dearest old friend on New Year's Eve and get lost.  How do you follow the blue dots on the trees and wind up in the middle of nowhere?  Jeanne and I school teachers.  We follow rules.  That got us, quite literally, nowhere.

If this tree could talk, she might have something to say about it.  The sign she has grown around says "Furnace Site 1.0."   We came upon this sign when we found ourselves at the bottom of the blue trail, and I thought, "Ouch."  Nobody noticed the tree was growing around this sign?  


Here's the furnace where pig iron took form after laborers ripped it from the clear-cut hillside that is now a preserve, the trails of which are strewn with granite and quartz.  Up the hill (if you stay with those steadfast blue dots), you'll find the pits covered with cages.  You can look down and wonder what it must have been like to come to Roxbury, now the getaway bucolic paradise of way too many New Yorkers, and have yourself lowered into the earth to blast ore from quartz for just enough money to get a drink, visit the bordello, and make your way home again.


Many streams on the preserve feed into the Shepaug River.  This one was structured into the industrial landscape at a time when the hill would have been clear-cut, harsh and bald.  It's ironic that this discarded industrial site--a brownfield before there was much brown to worry about--is a gem in the Roxbury Land Trust's crown.  It's ironic yet reassuring; nature heals herself and goes on.  Even better if we make a point of getting out of the way.


 Here's a view of some ledge from the Donkey Trail.  This is massive, unforgiving, unyielding rock.  Notice the young trees laying claim to the land and the mountain laurel (our State Flower) in the foreground gracing inert power with the beauty of life.

If you go to Mine Hill Preserve, bring a Girl Scout, and mind the blue dots.


Happy New Year!