My Hike up Eagle Mountain

Sept 17th 2022

Today I went up Eagle Mountain into the forest at Milton VT, to find magic. If you visit the area it's an absolutely gorgeous hike. Easy, with several trails. A little steep in a few places, although not bad, I was just already exhausted from not sleeping well the night before. Still I needed the hike and the adventure and the magic. 🥰

And boy, I found so much magic it's quite unbelievable! The entire forest is full of it! I found almost hundreds of little and some big blue mushrooms (indigo milk cap- I looked em up😜) which I found out are edible. I didn't pick any😜🥰 but they're awesome and I was astounded! I'd never heard of blue mushrooms. I hiked all the way up to what they call Hoyt's lookout. Which is an overlook near the summit with an amazing view of Lake Champlain and some of the islands with the Adirondack mountains in the background. I sat there on the rocks overlooking the lake quietly watching and listening as the squirrels and chipmunks played nearby. A Blue Jay of course chimed in his two cents. 😂 Don't they always? 🥰 There were a few boats scooting across the water leaving silvery trails behind them. And the quiet sailboats, peacefully just sitting still. I was taking all this in when all of a sudden I heard the unmistakable call of the loon. Such a hauntingly eerie yet beautiful call. I never saw the bird that day though, only heard his call.

I saw only a few people even on this gorgeous Saturday in the 60s. The few I did see were on a mission to accomplish their hike, they missed the magic, running through the trails so fast. But it's presence had to have touched them never-the-less.

I finally began my descent down the mountain, just as I made the first turn, right in front of me not but a few feet off the trail sat a barred owl 🦉 in a tree! It was the first time I'd ever actually seen a barred owl. Well, I saw what I thought could've been one once flying away and I've heard a couple, but I knew immediately who he was 😜😊 when I saw this guy. ❣️ Owls are very magical beings IMO and very special to me personally. He sat there and watched me and then would turn back to looking for his dinner, then back to me. This went on for a while until he saw something which caught his eye and off he flew silently into the underbrush to catch his dinner.

There were many more magical things to witness like the moss-covered huge rock formations and dying tree stumps. The dappled sunlight bouncing through the trees onto the forest floor of ferns and multicolored fallen leaves.

A centipede crawled along slowly across the trail, when he felt my footfalls he curled into a spiral. A great lean-to of tree limbs someone had built alongside the path, against the rock wall. Could be a great resting place. The purple asters, blue cornflowers, pink clover, and lots of goldenrod were everywhere. What a magical day this ended up being.

❣️ ✨ What magic did you see today?