On a crisp and frosty autumn day, the kind for which Vermont is famous, two friends pack day-packs and set out to traverse the Green Mountains from Underhill to Stowe.  One is a botanist, a champion of all that is green and alive – the magical life forms that have learned to take the weak energy of the sun and transform it into sparkling sugars that power the living world.  The other is a geologist, a seeker of the secrets of the unliving Earth.  To the geologist, the world is a cathedral full of subtle and fabulous clues to ancient secrets just waiting to be discovered.

The two begin up a narrow path through deep woods and giant boulders of schist that have fallen from above in some distant time.  The trees are large and ancient, the woods are dark and sullen although beginning to thin with the falling autumn leaves.  The two friends talk of politics, common acquaintances and the beauty of the day. 

At a point about ¾ of the way up the western side, the two scientists decide to divert from the trail to investigate an interesting glen formed by a fresh water spring emerging from the bedrock and pooling in beds of gravelly sediment.   The life has changed greatly with altitude and the trees have become gnarled and stunted from bearing the brunt of the winds that build in the distant Adirondacks and then scream unbroken across the expanse of Lake Champlain.  Hardy lichens and mosses cling to the rocks.   Deciduous leaves have long-since been blown away.

Everywhere the rock is smooth and rounded, the remnant of a mile-thick sheet of ice that pushed its way up and over the very top of these mountains during the Ice Age.  Not even the highest point of Vermont’s tallest mountain escaped this grinding assault of ice.  Near the top, the climbers encounter a rare, denuded alpine environment not unlike the sparse tundras of ancient times.

But their trail has temporarily dead-ended and the climbers have no choice but to go up a smooth rock surface so finely polished by the fine sands at the base of the glacier that they can see their reflection in it.  It is smooth and cold to the touch like a granite countertop in a new kitchen.  It is covered here and there with delicate lichens and moss, grasping and clinging, who-knows-how, to the mirror-like finish. 

The botanist carefully avoids the green patches and scrambles perilously up the rock like a child trying to climb a playground slide.  The geologist steps lightly on the moss for footing and works slowly up the slope.  Stopping to rest, the botanist looks back and, seeing the path the geologist is taking, hollers: “Don’t step on the moss, you’ll kill it!”  The geologist looks down and then looks ahead to the botanist.  “The moss will grow back,” the geologist replies, “watch where you’re going – you’ll scratch the rock!”

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© 2012, Jeff L. Howe. All rights.