“For me, the door to the woods is the door to the temple.”

Mary Oliver; Upstream, 2016 p154

Mark parked in the Manorville Hills County Park parking lot, and we set out for a walk in the largest pine forest left on Long Island. Its official name is The Long Island Pine Barrens Forest Preserve. We are in the 50,000 acre core area where no development is permitted. Beyond this, the 50,000 acre compatible growth area allows some growth in cluster zoning. Both areas are a safe deposit box for water. With very little impact from surface infrastructure, the ground water remains clean and pure.

There is no place else where one can wander on forested trails in such a large area. The 35,000 acre core isn’t all in the Manorville Hills, but the next larges area is 5,000 acre Connequoit River State Park Preserve.

We headed east on Hot Water Street. It is an unpaved, unimproved road along the southern boundary of the park. Some of the puddles look like they could swallow a car. Driving this street is not recommended. The Hot Water name comes from a small pond across route 111. It is called Hot Water Pond on maps because it never freezes in winter. Ground water seeps into the pond at 55 degrees and keeps the temperature above freezing. Since the pond is due west of Hot Water Street, that’s how it got its name. Before that it was called Cranberry Highway. Barrels of cranberrys were ttowed to sail boats at the north end of Edwards Avenue. Once the Railroad came through, the highway fell into disuse. This road was used by farmers to transport produce to the North Shore on Long Island Sound. Toppings path runs north south and intersects with Hot Water Street. Horses pulled wagons all the way up Edwards Avenue where goods were transferred to sail boats.

The parking lot is a door to this temple. I come here for the same reason I would enter a church. Both offer spiritual nourishment. Not only do I get away from mainstream busyness, I come to peace, silence, and a chance to experience a bigger reality. Mary Oliver calls her nature area a “temple”

This forest is for serious hikers, advanced hikers, who are fit. It is hilly, trails can be confusing. It is not recommended for the novice. Mark and I call ourselves experienced hikers and take “wilderness” hiking seriously. Mark carries a GPS program on his I-pad just in case.

The forest has six north south lanes that can be used as pathways for EMS trucks should anyone need help. There are three hiking trails, red, white, and orange. Blue markers are for bikers. There is a marked horse trail as well. There are no bathrooms. The only designated wilderness area on Long Island is the Otis Pike natural area on Fire Island National Seashore. I want to call this pine forest a wilderness because it “feels” like wilderness. I have been lost here. There are no maps at the parking lot kiosk.

Mark followed my directions and I got us lost. My goal was to pass Toppings Path, turn left on the Paumanok Path, and work our way back. Ultimately, we got lost because I forgot that the Paumanok path was rerouted to pass through the forest on the north side near the Long Island Expressway. We went way off our plan.

There is very little signage, which is another reason to consider the area wilderness-like. There are kettle hole depressions, straightaways, valleys, ridges, hills, but no mountains. The forest is almost all pitch pine trees. There is very little variety of vegetation. This makes for confusion. I have come to an intersection. Each corner looked the same. No landmarks to guide a hiker.  This uncertaintly made difficult to decide which way to go. Everything looked the same. “Boring” said Mark. I agreed. We have been hiking together for several years in habitats with lots more diversity than here. What this place has is topography. The deeper you get into the forest, we are transported off Long Island into a whole new experience. No cars, no noise, just trail, pine needles, bracken fern and blueberry shrubs, and a few dramatic boulders. To come upon a boulder is to spot a whale breaching on the Atlantic Ocean. You’re walking along and you see a strange gray shape up ahead. It is a glacial boulder. They are part of the temple we’ve come to pay a visit to.

The topography gave me an opportunity to stair-master up slopes, and treadmill straigh-aways. There are hills and hollows. The darker hollows swallow light and offer mystery just like in a temple. Mark’s comment, “We climbed what is equal to 41 flights of stairs!”

All during our walk, we heard not a single bird. However, we did observe ten seconds of drama. Two white-tailed deer exploded apart bounding in opposite directions. White tail flags held high as they escaped. Their leaps looked effortless like two ballet dancers exiting a stage. The moment of the apex of their leap is breathtaking. We had walked six miles for a ten second spectacular moment.

We had the place almost totally to ourselves except for two women who looked like joggers, a couple who looked like hikers, and a mountain bikers all geared up. Those people offered us the only spicy colors in a dull brown, prickle leaved forest. No cars, no advertising signs, no beep beep fro backing trucks. No loud jabbering on cell phones. Not in this temple.

We are one week from the winter solstice. The sun’s arc across the daytime sky is only 9 hours. Mark directed our progress trying to orient us back to Hot Water Street. It was obvious we were way too far north. The shadows of the trees had shifted as the sun had only two hours to set at 2PM. We bush wacked. “Follow the sun.” Mark recommended. We bush wacked for almost a mile, the longest I’ve ever done so.It was like being in my sailboat beyond the sight of land.

About half way through the hike, I started imagining falling into the passenger seat of Mark’s car. I was not feeling, “Oh my gosh, we’re lost” Mark had that covered. However, without his device, we could well have still been in the “temple” after dark. I did have a low concern level.

Hiking is my only form of exercise. No fitness club workouts for me. No clanging of iron weights, blasting “workout music”, full length mirrors, or sweat odors. Many people avoid this pine forest because they hear the word barren and it doesn’t have a Time Square ring to it. This place isn’t for everybody and that’s a good thing. We have our own private Temple here and there’s no collection basket being passed around.

Monks should have a monastery here, a serene, unspectacular, meditative place that has no distractions. Here, it’s walking for walking sake.