The Rivanna Rambler

This show originally aired on December 20, 2007 on “The Rivanna Rambler,” a weekly public affairs show airing every Thursday at 11:55 a.m. on WTJU 91.1 FM or wtju.net.

We are approaching the shortest day of the year. Looking for a local hike, we head out towards Monticello to the Saunders Trail, the 2 mile trail that winds up the side of Carter’s Mountain to the entrance of Monticello. It is a blustery day worthy of being called winter – and the parking lot on Route 53 is barely full. We don fleece jackets and gloves and head out for our first time on the trail, already well-known to locals, birders, and visitors. That we are in for a treat is immediately apparent as we start up the comfortably wide trail.

With a grade no greater than 5% so that it suits walkers, wheelchairs, and bikes, this is a budding naturalist’s dream – almost every shrub and tree is labeled with common and scientific name, and if it weren’t so cold, we might linger even longer over the varieties.As we ascend, the wind becomes the dominant – but invisible - character in the forest, chilling the air that falls into shadow behind Carter’s Mountain. We’d seen and felt it as we left our house in Charlottesville, whipping the tulip trees high above, reminding us of days on the water. But here, the gusts over the top of the mountain crescendo into a roar, sending twigs and small branches down onto the rock dust path. As we approach the boardwalk that carries us into the woods and above the steep grades of the forest floor, the sound of the wind easily masks any noise from cars on Route 53 below. It is thrilling, cold, and somewhat scary.

On the water, a common way for designating wind speed is the Beaufort Scale, named for Admiral Beaufort of the Royal Navy, whose method that linked wind speed with the number of sails a ship could carry, was formalized in 1830. As sailing vessels became more sophisticated, the system evolved to use the wind effects of the on the surface of the water to estimate speed in levels called Force 1, 2, and so on up to Force 12 – a hurricane. Later still, descriptions were added to describe the effects of wind as seen on land: for example, Force 6 is a strong breeze, equivalent to 27 mph and causing large waves with foam crests and some spray to build on the sea. The equivalent on land puts large branches in motion, causes wires overhead to whistle, and makes using an umbrella difficult.

But wind speed is hard to estimate without a lot of experience and instrumentation to corroborate. The noise and the motion of the tree canopy above provide clues, though the wind is broken by the mountain into turbulent downdrafts. I guess that it is gusting to at least 40 mph – Force 8 on the Beaufort Scale – gale force winds that, on land, the Beaufort scale says will beak twigs from trees and cause cars to veer on the road.The boardwalk carries us above the folds of the mountain gathering the waters that will descend eventually into Moores Creek on the other side of I-64. Up the hillside, I hear the crack of wood that continues for several seconds as a limb collides with a tree in the slow, inevitable explosion of descent. Closer to me, a tree that fell many months or years ago is splayed out upon the leaf littered slope, decomposing into segments like the joints of the fingers.

Wind is a primary erosive force on beaches and rock faces, joining with water to transform solids into sediments. On the fetch of open water, wind continually creates the rise and fall of waves in motion towards the shore. Later I learn from the National Weather Surface Charlottesville winds were measured at 29 mph with gusts to 47 mph. But regardless of the number, I left with the descriptive scale for inland wind that moves over the tree tops and through the canopy in turbulent eddies: rustling leaves, breaking twigs and branches, and in the strongest of winds, uprooting trees, hastening the recycling of nutrients from branch to soil in a sea of trees.