Tryon is only a short walk away from campus. The first thing you see when entering the woods is a paved little bike trail. It runs parallel to the road from the law school to the nature center. Small dirt trails break off of that and head deaper into the wilderness.
Leaves have not yet sprouted from tree branches, but Tryon is still green. Moss crawls up tree trunks and drips down from their branches. Ferns sprout from the moss all the way from the base of the tree to high above me. I was surrounded by the everlasting green of the many Douglas fir’s, and by my feet, the forest floor was coated with English ivy. Even at the tail end of winter, the forest is full of color.
I found myself on a little wooden bridge over a creek. I hoisted myself down the muddy side of the hill to sit by the creek. I sat and drank tea, watching a little bird splashing in the water and listening to the footsteps on the bridge above me. When I stoop up, I realized I had sat in the mud in my freshly washed jeans.
Tryon is not rich in wildlife, but it’s not void of it. Even this little oasis of nature lends itself to biodiversity not present in the city. At the onset of spring, I always get excited at seeing birds and little critters peeking out from their winter dens. LC’s campus has birds and squirrels. The squirrels on LC’s campus are big and scraggly. The squirrels in Tryon are a different species I think. They are smaller their fur looks softer.
Tryon’s small but it’s big enough to get a good hike in and definitely big enough to get lost. There’s a complex web of trails all over the forest. As long as you can navigate back to the paved trail, you can find your way home.
