Thomas Doty – Storyteller

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My Kind of Walking

Up the Mount Ashland Trail in the thick of the woods, I bushwhack through manzanita and chinquapin, across granite scree and tumbled trees. Abandoned by the Forest Service, this trail has been left to wind and storms for the best part of 30 years.

Ambling through dim canyons, along unnamed creeks, no road slices these woods. No sign distracts my imagination. My trail hugs the curve of the landscape. I see bears and coyotes in the shapes of shadows. The trees are so thick there are stretches of trail sunlight rarely hits.

Up the Mount Ashland Trail, amid the half-lit debris of neglect, this is my kind of walking.

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