It all happens on the blue trail

The blue trail started out as a footpath down to the stream about a quarter-mile from our house. It’s an easy walk, but it’s also easy to get lost out there, in a wilderness that opens up into thousands of acres that are home to black bears and coyote. I’ve gotten royally turned around a few times myself, once ending up so far afield that when we finally emerged from the woods, my dog Niko – usually an incorrigible wanderer, true to the Great Pyrenees breed – attempted to get herself adopted by the first people we encountered so as not to have to walk another step.

So to encourage independence without losing anyone, we would leave ourselves a trail of breadcrumbs, in the form of tree markers.

Husband Joe cut a fallen birch into thin rounds and spray-painted them blue. I snowshoed my way to the stream, my youngest buttoned underneath my coat, hammering the markers (gently... no back-swinging into the toddler’s head) into prominent trees. I’m braver in the winter, when your own tracks will always lead you back home.

Voila, the blue trail.

Over the ensuing years we’ve worn the trail in well enough that, though most of the markers have crumbled, the trodden path itself is now visible – at least if you already have an idea where you’re going. I bought an official looking trail sign from an Adirondack woodworker, which Joe nailed to a tree between the driveway and the trailhead, though not so near the driveway that just anyone driving by would see it.

Eventually, when I could walk the trail at dusk with only the mildest twinge of dread, I felt that itch: it was time to branch out. The original trail was I-84, now we needed some country roads. It made sense for my directionally challenged self to stick to nature’s most obvious landmark, so I hung a left at the stream and followed it back up to the dirt road. So was born the scenic loop, boasting such landmarks as Pebble Beach, Woodpecker Tree and fallen tree trunks crisscrossing the stream on which to test your balance a la Dirty Dancing.

Thus our footpath began its transformation into a trail system, an ever-evolving project that, five years in, is just getting underway. Sometimes dinner conversation can feel like pulling teeth, but our trail system, it occurs to me, is an open-ended exchange we’re all part of, each of us improving the trail – or suggesting a byway or leaving a fairy hotel – every time we walk it.

Already, the path teems with memories: the mélange of guests who’ve walked it with us, cementing their “Stream Team” status; the song we made up to keep little legs going. But I’ve heard you make extra-vivid memories when the adrenaline’s pumping, which might explain why one particular afternoon is seared into my mind’s eye.

It was three winters ago that Joe and I decided to take an impromptu snowshoe along the new loop, leaving the kids playing on the snow-blanketed trampoline. It was a picture of a winter day, thick flakes falling gently; we had to explore. They wouldn’t even notice we were gone.

When we got back 20 minutes later, the kids were... gone. Not on the trampoline, not inside, not in the barn. We live at the edge of civilization. There are no passing cars, no candy shop to inspire a jaunt into town, no danger around that could effectively disappear three kids. So where were they? If this was a game it was no longer funny. But it wasn’t a game; it was too quiet.

Finally thinking to track them, we discovered small boot prints radiating out from the trampoline to convene on our snowshoe trail. They had tracked us. That meant they must be somewhere... out there.

The point of the trail was to encourage wandering, but not alone, in sub-freezing temperatures and knee-deep snow that, to three-year-old Dion, must be waist deep. What if...?

We both took off at a jog, Joe hitting the trail in reverse; I following the kids’ route. As I hoofed it, I called to Niko to lead us to them.

Niko knew where they were, I realized with sudden clarity. Her sideways-lolling tongue told the whole story. While we’d been obliviously searching the basement, she’d been MIA – because she’d been with them.To her this was an epic game of Red Rover... and she was off again, leaving me huffing in a futile attempt to keep up. Snowshoes are no match for those dinner-plate paws.

When I finally caught up with her, sweat shellacking my back, I was greeted with the sight for which I’d hardly dared yearn these endless 45 minutes: three happy children.

Niko was wriggling with glee, Joe was carrying Dion on his shoulders, and everyone was talking over each other to tell me about their adventure.

Our kids had tracked us a mile through the snowy wilderness with a dog for a guide. Niko had been “helping” Dion, they reported, walking next to him so he could kind of hang on. By the time Joe found them, they were within sight of the road, tired but pleased with themselves. They would totally have made it on their own.

If that doesn’t deserve hot chocolate with marshmallows I don’t know what does. Also a splash of whiskey for the grown-ups. There would be no lecture, just a deep exhale and a toast: To many more adventures on the blue trail.