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A walk around the lake is a good thing, at least to me. Whatever season, whether it is icy winter or a hot summer day, a stroll with the lake in the background is a tonic that is so sweet it is barely noticed. The lake has its life process, processing me, the walker as I circumnavigate it. Many lakes are too big to walk around. Others, by their pollution, provide a different experience than a subtle communion. Those lakes are the kind where it's easy to get outraged at man's damage to the planet until it occurs to me that I'm as much a problem. Still others are just the right size and are removed enough from manmade dumping to give the illusion of pristine peace. They are the lakes that can be strolled around, working in concert with the process that quiets me as I make a pilgrimage around its sacred circle. Gilbert Lake is one of those in the last category. Gilbert Lake the main attraction of the eponymous Gilbert Lake State Park, located in Otsego County, a mostly rural county in upstate New York. The state park itself comprises of acres and acres of trails, camping grounds, woods, and a couple of additional smaller, lesser known lakes like Lake of the Twin Fawns and Ice Pond, which are nestled deep within the park. In the winter, snowmobilers share the trails with hikers, and there are signs showing the demarcation of hours between the sledders and the walkers.
Back on the main Gilbert Lake, there are non-motorized boats that can be rented. When, I wasn't exactly sure, because I always seemed to be getting to the park off season. Most likely, during the summer season and special weekends like Columbus weekend, times where one had to pay in order to get in the park. The times I showed up to the park, the boats were generally tied up, slumbering until they were summoned to work at some appointed time. Also, on the lake, there was a sand beach that was busy with swimmers and sunbathers in the summer. Other times, it seemed quieter, like a monk in meditation. Those seemingly silent times were my favorite time there. Because I had gone to this place without investing a lot of research, the entirety of the park was somewhat a surprise in store for me. I certainly knew about the lake and the immediate picnic areas. Sometimes I would walk around the lake by myself, with others, or my dog, not really knowing what lay behind the woods in the background. There was a concrete road that would take the traveler to a parking lot at one edge of the lake, and, traveling parallel to the lake where a passenger could glimpse it through the woods, another parking lot located at the beach for summertime beachgoers. Many parks I knew had this limited setup with woods bordering on private property, so I never thought to search it out further. A walk around the lake was perfectly fine, so far as I was concerned. I would feel content with this ambulation, which in itself showed the enchantment of the lake. The fact that I was so involved with the lake that I didn't even see the need to question what lay behind it was evidence enough how a lake could win me over.
But the lake itself isn't the only feature of the park. There was the time that I saw in my local paper an advertisement for a hike within the park. It was supposed to be one that lasted several miles, which certainly came across as more than a walk around the lake. Trails behind the picnic area, it said. At some point, when I had a spare afternoon to myself, I went to find those hidden trails. It was in winter, and I had the entire park to myself, judging by the empty parking lot. Behind the picnic area, I ventured into the woods which I had been so oblivious to earlier, finding myself in a labyrinth of paths which took me further and further away from the lake. There came a point when the snow beneath my feet became a perfectly smoothed white path and no trudging, snowshoes or cross-country skiing was required.
In this place, my wanderings were on a snowmobile path. During certain hours, snowmobiles were permitted, although snow walkers like myself had right of way at all times. Right now, in the early afternoon, I had the trails to myself and the eminent domain of permitted hours. The sinking winter sun was my only direction to get me back to my car, as I wandered through these unknown paths not so far from the place that I called home. Soon, my footsteps took me away from the depth of the woods, and civilization in the form of my car and a parking lot awaited me. I was still the only person in the world, so far as I could see. A deserted state park could sometimes give the effect that once man had been here, but now nature was beginning to take hold again. But that experience of wooded isolation was not the only way to experience the place. There are the times when all that is needed is a good, solid walk on concrete on a warm spring day. Then, man is present, though his effect seems more subtle than a busy city street where the only terrain is concrete and asphalt. There are concrete paths, and there are people dotting the landscape. One can walk on the manmade walkways all day and never touch soil. But the trees, and of course, the lake, are always there. They are background, but are not pushed aside in aggravated neglect. For a moment, or at least whatever time that one wants to allot, it seems that man and nature have created a temporary truce and decided it was a good day to have a picnic. Or a swim, or a campfire. Even a walk on asphalt while discussing the Outside Wold is pained with this tandem rhythm. The lake, which has been there since glacial times, takes it all in, all part of the scenery it sees, not unlike the viewfinder through which I see it as well. |
