Trilliums on the Hog's Back

I hiked the Green A loop in Northumberland Forest this past weekend. Fifteen kilometers through the trees. No parking fee, no booking, no anything. You just show up.

It's a privilege to have these trails right here, and I don't take it for granted.

Scotland is a couple weeks out. National Geographic sent the itinerary the other day, and some of those days have real elevation gain. That's the part I'm a little apprehensive about. I learned on Camelback Mountain in Arizona a few years ago that hills are hard, and steep hills are harder. So my plan for this hike was simple: hit the Hog's Back three times in a row and see what repeated climbing feels like in the legs.

On the trail in the Football cap, Peak Design clip on the strap

Looking up at the spring canopy, sun pushing through bare branches and new leaves

It's not Scotland. I know that. It's better than nothing.

The trilliums were the bonus. Full bloom, big white triangles all over the forest floor. Sometimes in twos and threes, sometimes whole crowds of them tilting toward the light.

Two white trilliums in close-up, dappled light through the leaves

One big trillium in the foreground catching the sun, a second one standing tall behind it

A patch of trilliums spilling across the forest floor just off the trail

The birds were the other gift. A blue jay watched me from a high branch for a good stretch of path, and a downy woodpecker working a log down in the gully.

Blue jay perched high in a tree with spring buds starting to open

Downy woodpecker on the ground beside a fallen log

The other thing in my ears the whole walk was Andy Serkis narrating The Return of the King. I read the book ages ago, watched the films a hundred times, but hearing Serkis read it is on another level. The man does voices like no one else alive.

If you have an audiobook subscription and a forest nearby, you know what to do.

People sometimes ask me WHY I hike the same trails over and over again. Why bother driving so far just to see something or take photos in a place that so many other people have gone to. What's the point? Why revisit a place you've already been to? Why "discover" a place that isn't really new. Do you think you'll get better photos than what's already available on Google?

No. I have no delusions about the quality of my photos, but the quality of my experiences cannot be measured. It's always different, and frankly, each time I walk the same path, I'm different too. I remember first walking the Green B trail with my kids when Harry was only 7 or 8 and Gemma was maybe 10 or 11. Then during Covid, Gemma and I walked that same trail as a warmup for doing a longer hike near Tobermory. Experiences matter, no matter the circumstances.

Get outside, folks. You never know what you'll see or how good it'll make you feel.