Magellan was a Runner

Whose woods these are I do not know,

The sign says "hikers welcome" though.

I had done some research earlier in the day to see if there were any trails that I had yet to run near my Huntsville house. Indeed I found out that there was a trail on Green Mountain I hadn't been to and was curious to see if a gem awaited. The trail head was slightly hidden on a back road with no houses in sight to the left or right of it. Garmin linked to its satellite, I headed off expecting to run about 3 miles before I had to turn around (as the online description said I would). Almost the entire first 2.25 miles were what looked like an old ATV road: double track not quite wide enough for a jeep. This trail seemed unfrequented as there was a lot of undergrowth and fallen trees blocking my path, but it was still mostly runnable. Interestingly, every time I came across some hefty downed foliage, the double track always seemed to have an alternate path around it, like the keepers of this trail didn't own chain-saws capable of cutting away the debris. The trail did this so often that it started to resemble a system of waxing and waning varicose veins down a forearm, all going in generally the same direction.

About two miles into the run I hit a rocky decent that led to a portion of power line trails. I kept seeing some tracks in the trail here that looked like someone had been dirt biking within the last month or so. The rocky trail continued downward and though my garmin was displaying more than 3 miles, I was curious to see how far this trail would lead me. Along the way down, there were several other routes I could have taken so I paid extra attention to them lest I get turned around on the return trip.

At 3.5 miles in, the trail, which by now resembled more of a dried up creek bed that could have passed as a rocky jeep road, opened up through what looked like a really old fence line into some factory storage facility on the very southern end of town. I stopped and walked around a bit to take in my surroundings. Nothing really spectacular here. But then again, it kinda was. I was at a wood line next to a long forgotten train track that lead to the vacant looking facility. I felt like I had stumbled into a small fragment of unappreciated human history. I could tell that someone had been here before but couldn't really tell exactly who or when, or why for that matter. And, honestly, the answer to those questions are probably as interesting as the mud in the treads of my shoes, but that didn't matter at the time.

My inner explorer satisfied to see this trail come to a satisfying end at the bottom of the southern end of Green Mountain, I turned and made my way back up the hill, past the power lines and into the woods from which I had descended.

As I was ascending the last quarter mile of the trail back to my car, I heard a small rustling in some leaves maybe 2.5 meters to my right. Lately I've been trying not to get too distracted by small woodland creatures as I'm flying over all those loose rocks (ah, so that's why my shoes are called "FlyRocs") up and down hills, lest I lose focus and slip as I had just 2 miles ago, but this woodland creature deserved some attention. I looked to my right and immediately recognized this black, white striped rodent. I don't think Mr. polecat felt too threatened by Mr. trailrunner, but Mr. trailrunner didn't want to take any chances. I think I briefly hit a 5:00 min pace going up that hill and found myself back at the trail head in no time at all.

Explorer, runner,

One more spec of Earth,

Always in my mind.

(^ Haiku ^)