At least the stream is not going to be a problem, I thought as we neared “the spot.” The water lazily slipped around rocks and over stones, trying to reach the coast without breaking into a sweat getting there.
Any concerns about what recent flooding may have done to this stream were quickly abated. Just where, now, should we park?
Fifteen hundred sixty-two weeks and two days ago, I first visited this spot with my wife and three elderly gentlemen, wildflower enthusiasts, one of whom had been my childhood dentist. To simplify the math, that first trip was thirty years and nine days ago. What Bethany and I were shown then, and what we hoped to soon rediscover on this day in June, was a patch of rare wildflowers deep in a forest. Secretive, stunningly gorgeous, very rare—those were the adjectives.
We were going after one of the largest native orchids in North America, the showy lady’s slipper, (Cypripedium reginae).
This trip got planned after I saw a wildflower presentation by Dr. Dwight Shull, where he told the story of a wildflower club in Harrisonburg, Virginia. They knew about these flowers, and would reportedly show them to interested people like this. First the person/people were blindfolded in Harrisonburg. Then they were driven around in the city until they were disoriented as to which direction they were travelling. After travelling several hours, they were led by the hand across a few streams and up a mountain. Once at the site, the blindfold was removed and the folks were shown the flowers. For the return trip, everything was repeated.
Dr. Shull added that he had previously shared this story at another wildflower presentation to a group of elderly folks in a retirement community. One of the ladies told him afterward that she knows that story about the showy lady’s slippers was true, because she had been secretary of that flower club.
So now you know the story I was told. I cannot vouch for whether or not this is a true story, but Bethany and I were mighty privileged to be shown this patch on June 13, 1995. On that day, the flowers were in their peak of bloom. I recall one of Dwight’s friends, either Jacob or Alvin, counting how many were blooming that year. I believe the number was in the thirties or forties. Looking back at my slides, I see about twenty or so, but my photos likely didn’t show the whole patch.
But showy lady’s slippers weren’t the only flowers in the patch. Goat’s beard and devil’s-bit were others that Dwight and his friends pointed out. Devil’s-bit are dioecious, meaning that the male and female flowers are on different plants.
I don’t recall what all species were there, but I remember it was quite a few for such a small area.
Now back to today’s trek, I invited Steve and his family to join Bethany, Cheryl, and me. Instead of pulling off at the first place we thought might be the right spot, we continued on up the road to take a closer look at the general vicinity. We soon passed a wider parking lot on the opposite side of the road. We would park there.
Tiger lilies added their delightful color and shape to the meandering mountain stream. Soon we were across it and on our way. Wild rhododendrons soon caught our eye. They were in their peak to slightly past, and a delight for sure.
Indian pipes bloomed in abundance. Steve’s wife Lydia exclaimed over them—they brought back memories for her. And then I spied something else, an LBM among the leaves and mosses. For those who don’t know, an LBM is a little brown mushroom.
Trekking up the mountain, our group soon became scattered. I lagged behind, and a few stayed with me. Others with more energy were soon out of sight, galloping up a hollow between finger ridges.
“Look at this,” I said to Bethany, pointing to a tiny mushroom peaking up beside a leaf. It was bright red and covered with scales on both the cap and the stem. It stuck out like a sore thumb.
As I write this, I uploaded a few photos to iNaturalist, seeking help with some identifications. I just got a reply back that a tentative guess is painted suillus. I checked photos of this mushroom and agree it likely is just that.
Here came Steve and crew with a “No, wrong hollow” verdict. Looking at a map with me, Steve said, “I think we are here by this stream, and we need to go over one hollow to the north.”
Over the ridge and out of sight went Steve, Cheryl, and the youngsters.
Another LBM poked through the leaves. A chipmunk or shrew or squirrel had apparently thought it a tasty find and had nibbled on the edge.
Bethany stretched up to smell a gorgeous rhododendron blossom—these plants were tall.
Over the ridge top I finally made it and started down the other side. But wait, why do all that walking before learning what Steve reports. I lagged behind and sat down. Bethany and Lydia stopped too.
Spotted wintergreen were sprinkled here and there. I should try to get some pictures of that too. With only my phone for a camera, getting quality photos was a challenge, especially for close-ups.
“They aren’t up here either,” Steve announced as he and the children came back to us. “I think we are going the wrong direction.
Instead of looking at a map, this time Steve was looking at a compass on his phone. The compass app is one that neither Steve nor I had used much prior to that day. Not only did the app give us the direction, it also gave our elevation and GPS coordinates, even though we did not have cell signals in that back country.
But why was that discovery so exciting? Well, thirty years ago after Dwight, Jacob, and Alvin took Bethany and me to see the flowers, I turned around and went a second time. That time I took Steve with me. While enjoying the flowers on that trip, I used a GPS to learn the coordinates of the patch. I wrote down those coordinates in my wildflower guide that day.
Yesterday I pored over Google Maps and Google Earth trying to determine where we were to strike out on this hike. As I spoke with Steve on the phone about his recollections from thirty years back, he suddenly remembered a detail I had forgotten.
“You wrote notes in your gazetteer,” he said.
That jogged my memory…yes, I had. I hurried to get the gazetteer, and there it was. Surprise! I had not only recorded the coordinates to the patch; I had also recorded the coordinates to the parking spot. By looking closely, I found two penciled circles—one where I thought the parking spot was, and one where I thought the flower patch was.
So that is where we had begun our search—not looking at GPS coordinates, but looking at land features and where I assumed we were to be. But now, after trekking up and down ridges, Steve was on to something—follow the phone, watching the GPS coordinates change, and follow that to the patch, all the while hoping his phone battery wouldn’t die.
We were about the correct elevation, but we would need to walk quite a ways straight south. Back over the top of the ridge and down into the first hollow we trekked. Steve and crew were soon out of sight, with plodders taking up the rear.
More spotted wintergreen speckled the forest. I would try photographing them again. And what about that mossy tree with a hole in its base—I guess it was too small for a bear den. More Indian pipes—a nice grouping under a mossy log—they would need to be photographed.
And then a girl came back. She held out her hand and showed me numbers—GPS numbers to watch on my phone as we walked. They had found the patch!
I took a picture of her hand so I wouldn’t forget what the numbers were. No, I’m not going to show the picture.
Lydia was off with her daughter. Bethany and I were left to plug along at my slow pace. Down the hollow and up the ridge again we went. This was too much. An hour passed, I’m guessing. The numbers on the phone were closing down slowly, and that meant only one thing—walk a lot farther.
We knew they were far away—probably over the next ridge—because only silence came screaming back when we called.
We poked on. My shirt was wringing wet with sweat.
And then we heard a call. I thought it was down the ridge and Bethany thought it was exactly the opposite direction. And then the call came again. Lydia was down below us, and she said the flowers were not too far away.
Down the ridge to her we went. Apparently following my phone’s numbers wasn’t working out quite right, for some reason.
“Down here somewhere is a nice deer trail to follow,” Lydia said. “I wonder if this is that trail. I think I came over the ridge through that notch.”
Upward we climbed, and through the notch we went. Down the other side—and then we heard calls again. This time it was the crew at the flower patch. They were up the hollow from us a piece. Apparently my phone was more right than I had given it credit for.
Finally, I arrived. Tuckered out. I wasn’t even doing this trip for me. I was doing this trip to freshly document where the patch was for the next generation coming along.
“Your GPS coordinates from thirty years ago brought me almost exactly to the center of this patch,” Steve announced.
So, there you have it. Had we not recorded directions in 1995, this patch would have forever been lost to our children, swallowed up by the thousands upon thousands of acres surrounding it.
By the looks of things, maybe our trek to this spot thirty years ago was the last time anyone had been there. Great!
Only two blossoms had the courage to hang on until we arrived. But what a show it would have been this year. Two or three weeks prior, the blossoms would have been in their peak—several hundred of them. Oh, what a beautiful picture those flowers would have made!
“I don’t expect I’ll come back,” I said. “That hike is too long and too steep for me…”
Lilies nodded their beautiful red heads. Lush ferns blanketed the ground. Water ran down the mountainside in the center of our little hidden patch. Secretive, stunningly gorgeous, very rare—those were the adjectives. Steep, long, hot, tired—those get added to the list.
Shortly after we left the patch, the hollow split, and another one came in from our left. So, doing a little observation, next year we should remember to take the left fork when we get back to this spot. Did I say we?
It took me fifty minutes just to walk back downhill to the road. Okay, I stopped to rest a few times—the youngsters and Steve could have done it in a breeze. But we were enjoying. What a delightful place—water, lush mosses, mushrooms, rhododendrons! “It doesn’t get any prettier than this,” Steve announced.
While it was certainly a beautiful place to be, Steve must have had his own mental blank when he ruled out a lot of gorgeous places with his wide paintbrush.
We were nearing the road, I guess, not that we could see it, but judging by how far we had walked from the patch. Steve said, “Here is another fork in the hollow going up. At this fork we need to stay right when we come back. And here it forks again, and this time we also stay right…and here is the first stream…the road is right up there,” pointing over the stream’s bank.
We made our way across the stream just south of where the mountain drainage joined the roadside stream. Up out of the stream and onto the road we went. We popped out of the woods by the road right at a tiny pull-off that serves about one vehicle tight to the road. No doubt we had parked here thirty years ago.
I plopped down and waited for my “chauffeur” to fetch the van. Meanwhile, a large sugar maple on the north edge of our little secret parking slot caught our attention.
“Children, remember to watch for this sugar maple when you come back…just sayin’…”
As we climbed into the van, a gentleman stopped in the middle of this back-country road and chatted.
“Are you Mennonites or Amish?” he asked.
“We are Mennonites,” Steve answered.
“What is most important to us,” I inserted, “is that we are born again Christians.”
“When you say, ‘born again,’ what do you mean by that?” the gentleman continued.
“I’m referring to the time when a person leaves childhood and recognizes they are accountable to God and in need of a Saviour…when they accept Jesus as their Saviour.”
“Do you all practice rumspringa?”
“I don’t have any idea what that is,” I answered.
Steve knew what he was talking about, and he said that no, we do not practice that in our group, and that in those groups where it is practiced, there is a lot of regret that comes with it.
I was glad Steve knew what the fellow was asking and could give him a good answer.
“So, when do your children become members of the church? Are they church members automatically when they are born?”
“No, when they become accountable before God and accept Jesus as their Saviour, they are baptized and become church members at that time,” I answered.
“What were you all looking for?” he asked.
“Flowers.”
He had been looking for mushrooms, and that soon led into a discussion about chanterelles, chicken of the woods, morels, and who knows how many more kinds. Steve was the one who held up that end of the conversation. After an oncoming car forced our visitor to move, Steve said he could have talked to that man a long time.
And so it was that we had come full circle after these thirty years. The only thing left to do now was drive back to Harrisonburg and get lost going in circles again, and our mission would be complete.