By Chuck Tague

   

    A stiff wind cut across Laurel Summit Bog on the morning of January 15, 2000. I stretched my cap down over my ears and pulled my collar tight around my neck as I left the shelter of the spruces and pines.  In Pittsburgh, according to the car radio, the temperature was fourteen degrees but at two thousand feet higher, and with nothing to impede the wind, it felt much colder.  It probably was.

    The walk from the parking area to the bog was surprisingly pleasant.  Only a thin dusting of powdery snow covered the trail.  On previous winter trips to the bog, during harsher, snowier Januaries, I either sank in the snow to my knees or found foot travel impossible.  Along the way, I saw few signs of animal life.  I noted four or five shrew tunnels through the inch or two of snow.  A small hopping rodent, possibly a Deer Mouse, had crossed the trail.  No birds called and no human prints but mine blemished the snow.

    At the bog, a band of Black-capped Chickadees greeted me from the edge of the trees.  The open, frozen bog looked barren and desolate.  The wind had scoured the snow from the icy surface while drifted mounds of powder had built up against the scattered clumps of blueberry and chokeberry stems.  Persistent sedges, bent by the winds, all leaned in the same direction.  The winds let up momentarily, but the sedges continued to tilt.

    After about fifteen minutes, the bone-chilling blasts proved too much and I started back.  A short distance from the bog, the trail crosses a narrow wet strip between the conifer plantation and the hemlock/hardwood forest that dominates Laurel Ridge.  Along the trail-edge, I noticed sprigs of Marsh St. Johnswort sticking through the snow.

    This hardy resident of saturated, acidic soils emerges from the mat of sphagnum and cranberries that covers the shallow edges of the bog.  In the fall, Marsh St. Johnswort develops crimson, urn-shaped capsules on the tip of each of its many branches.  The leaves, each a pleasing egg-shape with rounded tips, grow in opposite pairs along a twelve-inch stem.  The leaves and stems turn red in early autumn.  Along with the colorful seed capsules, they create a striking image against the green moss and evergreen cranberry leaves.  I examined the dried plants.  The leafless winter structures resembled full candelabras; the seed capsules, now faded to a dusty rose, suggested tiny candle cups.

    The sun peaked through a fast-rolling layer of clouds, spot-lighting the clump of St. Johnswort, intensifying the faded colors and casting delicate shadows on the fresh white ground.  “Curious” I thought.  Usually, by mid January, the snow had beaten down and buried the St. Johnswort under a thick blanket.

    On the way, back I reflected on the situation.  On the surface life was good in the woods around the bog.  There was little snow and the temperature was relatively mild. I could easily walk to the bog, the chickadees could find enough food with little difficulty and the St. Johnswort still stood erect and elegant.  However, the thin layer of snow made surviving winter more difficult for others, especially the shrews, the earthworms and insects they feed on, and all the other animals of the forest’s rich soil.  Without a thick insulating layer of snow, the freezing, killing winds cut deep into the ground.  Roots freeze and insects die.  Without the protective layer, usually two or three feet thick in mid January, rodents, shrews, moles and other residents of the sub-nivean world were exposed to owls, hawks, weasels and the elements.  Even the forest trees and wildflowers depend on the snow buildup to replenish the ground water reserve.

    Nature is fickle.  Weather is unpredictable.  Survival is never guaranteed – and the odds shift with every shift of the wind.  Some win.  Others die.  Let it snow.

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