The thing about the woods is that they can be quite beautiful and quite terrifying, all at the same time.

Photo taken with iPhone.

The good thing is that when you’re on a designated path in a state park, they’re a lot more beautiful and a lot less terrifying.

Photo taken with iPhone.

Unless you’re me, and you inadvertently lead your party astray from said path and out into the dense wilderness where every shadow is suspect, every rustle sounds menacing, and the legs of your fellow backpackers start resembling those of fried chicken drumsticks.

Extra crispy.

Photo taken with iPhone.

Fortunately, I stumbled back onto the path without even realizing I’d been off of it, and my much more wood-savvy companions were apparently aware that we were leaving the path and didn’t say anything because they, for some inexplicable reason regardless of knowing me, thought that I knew what I was doing.

Pfffft!

The truth is, I never know what I’m doing.

Like, at all.

I’m just stumbling blindly along like the rest of us.

And sometimes I can feel it when I’ve left the path, but other times I can’t.

Photo taken with iPhone

Rarely, as it did yesterday in Raven Rock State Park, does my inadvertent wandering turn into a bonafide short cut.

Photo taken with iPhone

So my lessons from our hike?

1)  Sometimes you have to look for even the most obvious paths, but wandering aside every now and again to enjoy the scenery isn’t the worst idea in the world.  Unless, of course, we’re speaking in the literal woods-hiking sense, in which case wandering from the path can be extremely dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.  (Anyone read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon?)

2)  On my own, trekking through the wilderness, I wouldn’t last a day.

I’m just glad that no fried chickens — or human appendages — were harmed during the hike.

Photo taken with iPhone

(By the way, my comrades saw the path switchback ahead of us, so while they knew it was a shortcut and weren’t just allowing me to blindly lead them astray, I had to expertly cover my shock at stumbling upon a path when I thought we’d already been on the path.  This is why you should always bring smart people with you while wandering through the woods.)