Rose Ledge

Rose Ledge was about 40 minutes from Hampshire College. This time, we had to park pretty far from where we were going to climb which gave us some time to become used to the nature around us.

While walking, I as always noticed the leaves on the ground first. By now the leaves have become dry, brownish/dark and crispy. Even if I would have not wanted to notice the leaves, the noise of the leaves when I step on the them forces itself into my ears and therefore not giving me a choice but to notice. The noise at some parts of the path was so dominating that all I could hear were the leaves.

In the area that we were at, all the leaves had fallen off. Most of the trees were bold now, because of which I could really notice all the different forms and branches of the trees. When the trees still have their leaves the dominating factor on the trees are the vibrant colored leaves and the tree itself and its branches often go unnoticed.  The late fall/early winter is the time when trees are having their solos. It's only the tree, without any distractions, all attention is solely on the tree.
 
For me, this is when the trees look most alive. All the branches are pointing in all possible directions, towards the sky, towards the ground, towards me as if they are trying to reach out and grab something. The trees without leaves also reflect different shapes on the ground than they would if they had leaves. The shapes are much finer, reaching into each other but never covering one another entirely. Another big difference to leave-less trees as opposed to trees that have leaves is that they allow more sun to enter the forest. Although there was not a lot of sun, the sun that was there made it all the way through to us.

When we finally arrived at the rock, I was happy to see some gneiss again. Last week we climbed on conglomerate which I like but I prefer gneiss after all. When we started climbing I realized how cold the rock is. It was pretty cold outside but the rock was definitely a lot colder. And since gneiss as opposed to conglomerate often doesn't have little holes and niches that I can grab onto, I again had to hug the gneiss in order not to fall. Because I was hugging the gneiss I was so close to it that I could really feel its cold. However, the farther I got up, the hotter my body was getting and  the better I could prevent the cold from effecting me.