This last weekend, I found myself in the mountains, walking by the light of the pre-dawn sky. Jupiter was bright overhead, and Venus had just risen. The new moon was with the sun, still far below the East horizon.
If you've ever done a night hike, then you understand I was a little worried about what I might walk into. The area has deer, elk, coyotes, a few bear, and a few moose. While I heard some critters shuffling in the woods, and had an owl pass close over my head, none of those were my worry.
Many years ago the area had been farm, and then ranch. With various areas for different animals, and fences for keeping each to its own. Those fences are now traces of dark, matt, rusty-brown barbed wire lacing the hills between the trees. That was my worry.
Without a flashlight, it's really subtle. With one, it's still pretty subtle - in the day it can look like twigs. But I was hiking without using a light. If I hit some of the wire, I'd have some patching to do to my legs. Maybe it would have been smart to use a flashlight, but I wanted to see the wild as it is for itself.And I thought of the deer and elk, their daily and nightly lives walking through those same woods. I could feel why it's not uncommon for them get entangled the old barbed wire, and sometimes die from it. That dark - that's their only choice. I'm thankful I have both a flashlight option, and a first aid kit.
- Post scriptum: a few times a year, in various locations, there are volunteer projects to remove these old fences-become-traps from public wildlands. Please consider helping out, and volunteer to participate. As the open lands shrink from our expanding footprint on the lands, the quality of the remaining wild matters more and more.