SECRET SPOT

Way up in the woods behind the house in Castleton there is a cliff of matamorphic shale along one side of a pass, and about half way up that cliff there is a ledge. If you found the place, and it is there quietly waiting to be found, you would see at one end of the ledge a crude fireplace- just a large flat stone surrounded on three sides by tightly stacked rocks to kick back the heat. I first discovered the ledge during one of my frequent wanderings through the woods behind the house. I loved those woods. Sometimes, as I lay in bed at night, struggling to go to sleep, I will wander them in my mind's eye. I can still retrace the old faded logging roads and every turn of the brook as it dropped down into the gorge towards its rendezvous with Briton Brook. It is all mapped out in my mind, not as it is perhaps, but as it was when I was a boy. The pass where I found the cliff connected our valley to the next one. It was an interesting spot. I remember that it was always damp up there. Even during the driest of times it was a mossy, squishy place. In the height of summer ferns grew waist-high and bramble canes grabbed at your jeans and t-shirt as if to say "wait a minute." It was a muddy, squishy place because it was a seeping, oozing place. Water made its way out through cleavage planes in the surrounding rocks. It pooled quietly in the low place between the hills before giving birth to mirror brooks which first trickled, then babbled, then flowed down opposite sides of the pass into the neighboring valleys.

The ledge could only be safely accessed by climbing high above it and then working your way carefully down a steep trail (what animal was responsible for that trail I do not know, but I have always wondered). It was necessary to grab saplings and bushes to check your speed as you went. The trail, which is a generous description, came down to the very lip of the cliff where it petered out. Once at the cliff you were forced to lay down on your belly and let your feet dangle over the edge, slowly lowering yourself down until your inquisitive toes met solid footing below. The first time I did this I was terrified that somehow I would mess up and fall to my death, and even after I had frequented the ledge many times I always felt tense and frightened while my feet dangled uncertainly. Only when I felt the ledge solidly underfoot could I resume breathing. Then I would let the rest of my weight down onto the ledge and slump against the cliff face and take in the view. The view was nothing spectacular. Below was the pass in all of its squishy, muddy grandeur and opposite were the woods climbing up the other side of the pass.

I built the fireplace at the far end of the ledge on a snowy day in March. I got the stones to the ledge by rolling them over the lip and letting them drop down onto the ledge. For every two stones that stayed on the ledge a third one would roll off and crash down the cliff face. By the time I had finished building the fireplace the sun was starting to go down so I had to wait until the next day, after school, to have my first fire on the ledge. After school, the next day, I set out for the ledge straight away. On my way up I stripped bark from fallen birch trees for tinder, but I waited until I was closer to the ledge to gather the firewood because I needed both hands to safely negotiate the descent to the ledge. Luckily, there was no shortage of dry wood in the neighborhood of the ledge. I had a lot of awesome fires up there on the ledge, but none as great as that first one. I folded up my jacket so I wouldn't have to sit on the cold rock. Fat snowflakes were falling through the quiet woods, but I was wrapped in the orangle glow of my fire up on the ledge. It was better than any fort I had known as a boy. It was perfect.