When our class dispersed into the Green Mountain National Forest for a few minutes of solitary observation, I found myself drawn to the waters of Sucker Brook not far upstream from the Falls of Lana. In part it was the sound of gently flowing water that drew me to its bank, but it was also the incredible sculptural forms of ice that partially covered its surface. The clean-white blanket of icy snowfall had several large holes that I could see, producing open skylights for the babbling brook below. The running water had melted the edges of this frigid cover to produce beautifully sculpted forms which even featured the added interest of dangling icicles. The contrast of bright, smooth ice and dark, energetic water below was something I could have enjoyed for much longer than our allotted 10 minutes.
I sat down and looked at the life growing around me. There was a towering Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) to my right which I was soon to stand and lean against once I realized just how cold snow-covered ground can feel. To my left was a rock cap fern (Polypodium virginianum) jutting out from the side of a small boulder, a species which, like myself, is attracted to the geologic outcrops that occupy the forests of the eastern United States.
Looking upstream, I saw a massive boulder that was a few meters across. It reminded me of one of the first field trips I ever took for a college course, during which we waded out into the Middlebury River to collect data and calculate streamflow. Venturing upstream, we came across massive boulders that could not have been moved by the current discharge of the channel, providing a perfect opportunity for our professor to remind us of the dichotomy of geologic time: either mind-boggling slow or mind-blowing fast. Over a stretch of thousands of years, there is bound to be a flood that is capable of causing such geologic change. Similar to David George Haskell’s “Earthquake” chapter from The Forest Unseen, it is a reminder of the connection between time, geology, and the forest ecosystem. Though Sucker Brook was peaceful as it gently flowed under the ice that day, time hides its true potential.