September 20, 2014
Oakland Feather River Camp
AFTER SUMMER CAMP
As Autumn approaches, and the black oaks and maples around Oakland Camp take on a tinge of colorful leaves, the bustling camper activity of summer is but a dream of happiness. Not until next spring will the deciduous vegetation again take on a new life, just as another camping season will be born again.
“The same leaves over and over again/They fall from giving shade above,/To make one texture of faded brown/And fit the earth like a leather glove. Before the leaves can mount again,/To fill the trees with another shade/They must go down past things coming up;/They must go down into the dark decayed. They must be pierced by flowers/ And put beneath the feet of dancing flowers./ However it is in some other world/I know this is the way in ours.” So said Robert Frost.
I wasn’t able to attend camp this summer, but I know that what I knew in previous years about camp- area life is still there. The blue glaucophane schist along the creekside will be even more water-worn, and the black oaks with their splotches of lichens and moss will be dangling new leaves in the breeze. Nature will find a way, even past flood, fire, and freezes, to again respond to the spring sun with life, and greet those “who in the love of nature hold communion with her visible forms.”
The roots are in the ground and the rocks are in their formations to assure the explorer that something of aesthetic value will be there. Some of the habitat may be shuffled, and some of the old pines might be gone, and there might even be some new wild entities, but basically, given the essentials–water, sun, and protection–life goes on.
Paul’s Pause Place will still be there on the high bank overlooking Spanish Creek, maybe still shaded by the Ponderosa pine and live oak, awaiting the tread of summer visitors. Camp Naturalist Paul Covel knew that place just as countless other campers have known it. Places and habitat species provide the nature part of camp, just as the cabins and veranda and kitchen provide camp comforts in a “home away from home.” On the Covel nature trail plaque it is written, “Going to the woods is going home,” words of John Muir.
To some, the essence of the camp experience is observing wildlife and preserving the memories through art work, writing, or the camera. Some gain creative inspiration. Some may prefer the dancing and socializing and swimming, and that’s OK where there is something for everyone, but some of those things can be done in the city.
The umbrella-sized leaves of the Indian Rhubarb will slink away with the first frosts, to become flairs of red and yellow leaf-flags before receding. Another spring and the rubbery-stemmed plant will again rise out of the cold creek gravels to withstand the strain of another season of rapids and growth.
Most of those summer animals, except the migrating flycatchers, are residents, either hibernating in cold times or pounding out a living like the woodpeckers. Deer haunt the shadows and the furred predators are on the prowl and the woodrats check camp for leftovers to embellish their stick towers.
Come hail or high water, the trains will thunder by like a flock of wild geese, carrying their cargoes to far-away places, little concerned of the passage through a hallowed camp long accustomed to the roar in the night.