Retreat Woods Showing Signs Of Wear

We took a walk in the Retreat Woods recently as a way to get back into nature without having to go too far.  It had been a while since we last went — probably in the early summer sometime.  The trails were already too wide then, but this last time, it was obvious they had seen some hard wear.

In most places, the main paths were down to hard-packed bare earth, with lots of trippy rocks and tree roots pushing up that I don’t remember being quite so much in evidence before.  The softer, smoother top layer of earth seems to have been worn away.

The trails are considerably wider than they used to be, and there’s less growing along the edges. I fear we won’t be seeing the fringed polygala there again, or at least not where it likes to grow by the trail’s edge near the slough below the upper meadow after the beautiful (and once carpeted) pine grove.   And of course, all those new side trails that the Grafton Cheese / Retreat people opened up with signage have grown from what once were no more than deer paths to full width walkways.

To make matters worse, for me, a nature loving person, was that someone had gone through and marked the trails themselves with neon orange arrows — to guide mountain bikers, was our guess, as they also flagged rocks in the trail in the same neon paint.  The same people, we are again guessing, went through with clippers and cut down all the side growth on narrower trails as well.

It was about then that I started feeling dark clouds over my head, and I bagged the notion of relaxing in nature in favor of going home and doing something less stressful.  But that took a few minutes or more, giving me time to reflect, sadly, on the constant winning battle we humans wage against nature.  I say winning because we almost always do.  In the case of the Retreat trails, human recreational use seem to be slowly killing the host, or at least over-taming it.  The woods seem less happy now, and I think it’s because we’ve been using them for reasons not related to appreciating nature.

There are so many reasons to want to keep these woodlands wild.  For starters, the fact that they exist at all is almost miraculous, given their location in the middle of town.  That testifies to their value, not as residential lots but as conserved natural space, a retreat if you will, for both wildlife and quiet, low impact people (and their dogs). Now it’s just a place for people to use, which seems less respectful when you consider that nature really is on the run and habitat loss is one of the contributing factors. It would be nice if we could contribute to a little net-positive habitat in this one little space, if only as a candle in the wind.  I fear that right now, we’re going the other way, making the woodlands less hospitable to both nature and the people who appreciate it.