Size

           For a while I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around what 6 million acres looks like, and how I fit within it. Trying to draw a map of the park the other day, proved harder than I thought. All in all, I only had about 5 landmarks on the map, most of which were within in a 20 mile radius of the Mountain House, and wrongly placed. My new understanding of the map still doesn’t do justice to all of the different habitats Kanze showed us, the peeks Annie has climbed to, or the species of birds identified by John.

            Staring out the dining room window, or gazing at the mountains as I walk back to Alpine at night, makes me aware of the vastness of this landscape. Even Owl’s Head, the smallest of the peaks I can see, is so enormous it swallows any person making the hike. Looking out at the high peaks and trying to guess how many people are climbing on a sunny day like today, leaves me feeling awestruck. Of all the mountains I can see, and of all the people climbing them, I can’t make out a single soul. In order to understand what 6 million acres looks like, I would need to multiple my current view by tens or hundreds of thousands, making me as puny as a single blade of grass in the lawn before me.

            Still, as big as it feels, the park is small. Of the 37 billion acres of land on Earth, the Adirondack’s 6 million acre contribution is so negligible, it’s barely worth mentioning.  How something can simultaneously feel so big and so small is beyond what I can conceive, yet, as one of the smallest players, I still have the ability to create change and motion.