Fragments From Floyd

I have a couple of ends in mind for the mental and digital images, events and memories from our hike up Buffalo Mountain on Saturday. So you'll probably see and hear about this excursion more than once.

It was one of those outtings we set on the calendar, and were determined to go no matter what. And almost always when this happens, there is a mixture of the good and the bad about it, leaving a kind of elated ambivalence about the impending adventure. On the plus side, a cold front had come through the day before our planned hike. Temperatures on Saturday would be crisp but not cold, and with the humidity fallen so low, visibility would stretch to the farthest horizon. What a great day to be on that high spine of rock near the peak of the leaf color change season, and with friends!

But while the weather folks were calling for west winds of 10 miles an hour, I didn't tell Ann before we left but the internet wind gauges from Blacksburg were showing a constant wind of 30 with higher gusts--and that was not even at almost 4000 feet where we would be at the bare rocky summit of the Buffalo. The gale would be brutal, with wind chills in the thirties, and we'd need to dress for fall at the start and winter at the finish of our climb up. Ann had never been to the top, and I wanted it to be a good experience for her. She's no sissy, but I've been miserable on that mountain more than once. Pack wisely, I told myself.

And the trudge up was uneventful. We wondered why we had brought so many layers of unneeded clothes! Even when we reached the first of the open summit, it was really quite pleasant. The wind seemed to be blowing OVER us rather than AT us, and we stood there for the imperative, reflexive 360 survey of the horizon some 30 to 70 miles away, taking our bearings, taking it all in. Dennis brought his binocs, and with his familiarity with the NC terraine, we picked out the tallest buildings in both Winston-Salem and Greensboro, plus four tall stacks of a power plant he could name but I've forgotten. And of course, Pilot Mountain was conspicuous to the south. From the top, to orient to home, we could see without the binoculars the white ball of the NEXRAD tower just two miles west of Goose Creek. What a day!

And yet, having carried my camera bag and tripod to the top, I didn't expect much, photographically. The cloudless sky was uninteresting, the colors were honestly pretty unimpressive a week short of peak, and we'd have to leave before the late afternoon lighting began to add shadows and interest to the scenes below. And then we heard the sound that changed everything.

"Raven!" I said immediately. Dennis spotted them through the binoculars just beyond the steepest end of the mountain--the head and shoulders of the resting buffalo. There were five of them. "I think they're crows" he replied, as I shielded my eyes to watch them rise and fall in the stiffening wind.

"I'll admit I've never seen more than two ravens together in the same place at the same time, and those may be crows, but what I heard was definitely a raven."