You Can Never Return…

Trip Report - November, 2025, High Peaks Region in the Adirondack State Park, NY

My favorite place in the wilderness is in the midst of the high peaks in the Adirondack Park in upstate New York. It is a place that is difficult to get to; it requires a somewhat demanding hike in from the trail head with steady climbing, it requires a water crossing that at times is high enough to necessitate taking off one’s shoes, and it is out of the way and off the beaten path. Yet the leanto is above a beach next to a slow-moving stream, in the midst of a swamp/meadow formed and tended by a very active beaver. From the beach you can watch the sun rise behind a mountain and set behind other mountains. At night you can witness the broad, open sky, which is not easy to find in a Northeast forest. I have been going to this place every year since 2014 with family and friends and by myself. It is one of the few places in the world where I can sit still for up to an hour and just take everything in.

This year I almost did not have an opportunity to get to my favorite place. All of the trips that I was leading through the spring and summer took me to various locations, but none to my favorite spot. This is why, when I was finally able to go on a solo trip in November I decided to return to the space where I have had so many wonderful and powerful wilderness experiences. I was looking forward to returning to a location that had become familiar to me in physical and spiritual ways. The only different was that this would be the first time that I was going to this place in November. Previously I had only been to this spot in the summer and fall, but never in winter conditions. I was curious how the space might look different, what may feel different, and what may feel the same. Granted, late November is not winter, and the 6 or so inches of snow is not close to the total that will fall through the winter season. I knew it would have a different feel and experience and yet have a sense of familiarity as well.

We have our favorite places that we like to go. We have those spots where memories were made, where we discovered a part of ourselves, where we found a peace that is not otherwise easily found. We like to return to those spaces so that we can remember and reclaim a part of what it might have been that we found the first time. While nostalgia can be a toxic emotion, there is something good about returning to an oasis in our lives. We can reclaim an oath, rededicate ourselves, or find again a purpose that we may have lost. We can re-center ourselves in the known space and the known safety. There can be something good about returning to the known, comfortable spaces in our lives.

Every church that I have worked at would have a candle-lighting service for Christmas Eve. In the dark we would sing “Silent Night,” and share the light from candle to candle. In some churches we would lift up the candles for the final verse. In other churches we would stand around the sides of the sanctuary. In every church there was true desire to have a moment of light candles with real flame at the end of the service. I don’t think it was just nostalgia that people were looking to experience, but a chance to reclaim and relieve a moment when peace and stillness was found. It was a moment to return to a sense of innocence or purity or community. The moment was different for each person and would continue to be different for each person. And it would be different each year. The joys and the struggles of the past year would be a part of that candlelight moment. The anxieties and anticipations of the past year would be a part of that candlelight moment. The space would change, the people attending would change, but there would still be that experience of singing “Silent Night,” of sharing a light, and of falling into a mystery of the moment.

This is what I was looking for with my recent trip. I was bringing with me a year of joy and struggles. I was carrying losses and hopes. I was looking to reclaim a sense of myself and to deepen my desire for wilderness ministries. I was looking to remember memories of trips past and to make new memories. I knew that I could not return to a space that once was. The space was not going to be the same, the snow made that impossible. But I was looking to dwell in the familiar, to still gaze on the mountains and take in the amazing views. The views were amazing albeit covered with snow. The meadow was muted due to the silence of the snow, the streams moved slowly under a thin sheet of ice. I floated across the swamp in my snowshoes, I worked to avoid snow falling on me among the trees, and I found a stillness in the early darkness, taking in the multitude of stars. I returned to a place of wonder and beauty but it was not the same place. It was good that it was not the same.

One of the aspects of the wilderness that I love is the dynamism of each space and moment. The wilderness is never the same and we can never have the same experience in one space that we might have had in the past. Everything changes including us. This is why I like to return to spaces, to experience them differently, to find the similarities to the past as well as the moments of future differences. I look to see what new insights I might be able to find and how they inform who I have been and who I hope to be. I take the old and combine it with the new falling into an experience that will always be unique to that moment.

We return to spaces in our lives in a literal way but also through ritual, retellings, and repeating what we might have done in the past. We can never go back to what once was. We can never recapture experiences of the past, but we can allow the past to shape our present moments. If we are open to what might be new, what might be different, then the familiarity of the past could inform what is new and different in the present. I walked the snow-laden trails remembering the rocks and moss from past hikes but staying open to ice and snow in the moment. I did not feel a high level of anxiety because I knew where I was even if it was different. I found peace and solace with challenge and difficulty. It was a known place of comfort and a new place of wonder.