The sun shone down on my face from the peak of its daily ascent. I lay there, on some of the oldest rocks in the world with my feet dangling over the edge of the ridge, dozing in the mid-day heat and taking a break from my ritual of the day.
The ritual of meticulously placing my hiking pole in a spot that would support and balance me as I swung my foot up onto the rocky ridge in front of me, pushing myself forward on the stretch of trail that is routinely referred to as “the hardest trail in Michigan” only to catch myself as I picked my way down the rocks back into the boreal forest. The process would repeat itself less than a quarter mile later.
I lay there, along with the lichen, soaking up the late September sun and allowing it to turn the sweat on my brow into salt lines, giving me a faux aged look, until the call of a bull moose rang out from the wilderness below my feet spurred me up and onto my destination for the day, still a few hard miles on down the trail.