Guyot Hill is summited by a sinuous loop of old forest roads, Guyot Hill Road on the east and Pine Circle and Pine Reservoir Roads on the west side. I followed the Crag Trail from Spring Farm to reach Guyot Hill Road by way of Cedar Drive, and was bypassed along my way by several groups of hikers eager to climb Bonticou Crag’s rocky precipice. I was glad to have my expectations confirmed: as soon as I left the Crag Trail, I had the woods all to myself. After I had rounded a series of switchbacks on Guyot Hill Road, a solitary jogger breezed by. She waved as she passed the lookout bench where I had paused for the view of Bonticou Crag that the spot afforded. I realized that this was in fact the best time of year to visit Guyot Hill, if one wanted to enjoy even such limited vistas as this one, and others looking east to the Wallkill Valley and the Marlboro hills beyond. Guyot Hill’s views were once kept open, but are now mostly screened by second and third growth trees. But I was happy on this day to savor the limited, but lovely, perspective this place gave me, and to peer through a lattice of bare branches at the Crag that I knew others were scaling, scrambling from boulder to boulder, as I gazed from afar.
As I wended my way down Guyot Hill, I noticed how soft and cushiony the road felt underfoot. It seemed as though the slow composting of leaf litter and horse manure had produced this springy surface, so pleasant to tread upon. My footsteps were accompanied by the drumming of one hairy woodpecker, and the answering rat-tat-tat of another. Those drum rolls, the only courtship song this bird has, punctuated the quiet of those woods, and reminded me that a new spring season was at hand. Then came the ringing cackle of a pileated woodpecker, followed by the sight of him, big as a crow, but more dramatic in appearance, with his red crest and swooping flight. And here was a deeply excavated snag, with its labyrinth of carpenter ant tunnels exposed, that I took to be the work of the big woodpecker with the jackhammer head.
On my return from this pleasant excursion to Guyot’s Hill, I was greeting by a chorus of spring peepers from a large vernal pool, still partly iced-over. In honor of these spring pools, and the humble creatures they harbor, frog and salamander eggs and tadpoles, and fairy shrimp, and in observance of National Poetry Month, I’ll conclude with this poem by Robert Frost. Those who came to my Signs of Spring Walk at Spring Farm a few weeks ago may recall hearing me read it then.
