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adventures in the gorge

Summers here are glorious and humid, creating a vortex of increasingly unbearable heat. Write in the mornings when it’s cool, then escape. Grab the kids and follow the water.

We’ve been spending our summer weekends exploring and hunting stories. Down the mountain from our home lies a deep, protected gorge with a creek running through it. The trees are old, the creek is cold, and the wilderness is criss-crossed with aged dirt roads.

The gorge has a long history of logging, farming, and we’ve heard rumors of abandoned villages. We haven’t come across those yet, but we did find this structure.

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It might have been a section of an old boiler (based on surrounding structures) or a possibly a brick oven. I prefer to think of it as an abandoned goblin lair, myself.

There are stories hiding everywhere in these woods!

In another section of the gorge, we came across the ruins of a castle. Okay, okay, not a castle, but a stone wall once built to border a farm long since invaded by forest. I have long dreamt of finding the ruins of a castle in the woods. Coming this close was a thrill.

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Following a dirt road at the bottom of the gorge with some vague directions from Google maps, we fjorded the creek past a caved-in bridge and hiked along a quad trail to a covered bridge. Covered bridges are fairly common in our area, but we don’t often find them this far into the wilderness. Perhaps it was the missing bridge along the road to it which made it feel like a secret place.

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There were three well-worn camp sites near the covered bride, and an excellent swimming spot for the kids beneath the bridge. It’s fun to hunt for trolls beneath the bridge and look up at the construction to see how they were built way back when.

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Ever since I was a child I’ve wanted to build a fort in the rafters of a covered bridge, tucked up from the road and sheltered just enough. This bridge, nestled into the woods with the mountains towering on either side, brought that urge back with renewed vigor.

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Are you taking breaks from your writing to have an adventure or two this summer?

 

Posted on by JenniferShelby

directions

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The leaf fairy looked around. “Grey castle? Sort of gloomy and made of rocks?”

The traveler nodded.

“You’re heading in the right direction. Keep traveling east through the ogre-infested thicket, then take a left at the river. You might want to write this down.”

The traveler dug out a notebook and pencil.

“The river’s full of sirens, so plug your ears and don’t try to swim across. A few hours walk to your left and you’ll come to a bridge. The bridge troll is reasonable, he’ll let you cross for a handful of moldy berries or a few spoiled apples. Chances are you’ll come across some along the river,” said the leaf fairy.

The traveler scribbled all of this down.

“Once you’re across you’ll come to a fork in the road. Keep right, the left will lead you into a legion of imps and you don’t want that. The right will take you over the Shifting Mountain. Mind the shifting, it feels like an earthquake, but it’s not. The mountain’s a sleeping giant, and he’s a bit ticklish, so when you walk over him he chuckles in his sleep.”

“Does he ever wake up?” asked the traveler.

The leaf fairy shrugged. “Hasn’t for years, you should be fine. Anyway, once you’re over the mountain, you’ve got to turn around and look for a cave. It opens up into an immense cavern and there’s your castle. The giant fell asleep snuggled up to it so it’s a bit tricky to find. Do you have a flashlight or a lantern or anything?”

The traveler shook his head.

“Hmmm. Might be wise to get one at the gift shop in the ogre-infested thicket, though their prices are terrible. Let’s see, I think I’ve got a candle and some matches around here somewhere. Better than nothing, right?” The fairy scurried around a moment before handing them over.

The traveler put them in his pocket.

“Well, then, I best be going. Lots to do before winter!” said the fairy, and flitted off.

The traveler stared at the directions he’d just written down and adjusted his backpack. His gap year was proving more exciting than he’d anticipated. He knew he’d made the right choice coming here instead of backpacking around Europe.

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the patchwork castle of the hobs

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As the years went by, the castle began to show its age. A family of hobgoblins were put in charge of maintenance and then they and the castle were forgotten. Frost filled the towers, bats crept in to roost, and mice ruled the throne room. The land began to shift and cracks crept through the stonework.

The hobs did their best to keep abreast of the decay, filling the cracks with mortar and shooing the bats from the bedrooms. They invited cats into the throne room and lit fires in the tower hearths when they could. After the roof collapsed they knew no king would ever return. Their wages were lost, but they’d nowhere else to go and they’d grown to love the tumble-down place.

So the hobs gardened in the courtyards and hunted in the wood to survive. They grew herbs in the open kitchen and trained peas to climb in the cracks of the stone walls. The towers they planted with grape vines, and in a few short years the towers were filled with grapes which made the choicest wine.

They sent some to the current King, who raised his glass to their success. He was so impressed he gifted them the castle, and they stayed there forever while it tumbled down around them.

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the castle of the mouse

It wasn’t as fancy as a castle made of stone, carefully cut and lain just so. Still, after years of studying architecture in London and Barcelona, the mouse was proud of the make-shift castle he’d made for himself. So he moved himself in, ordered a dragon or two from a mail-order catalog, and waited for his next adventure to begin.

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