“Where function does not change, form does not change. The granite rocks, the ever-brooding hills, remain for ages. … It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic … of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the life is recognizable in its expression, that form ever follows function. This is the law.”
— Louis Sullivan, architect
A stone is a rock with a purpose. This is the first adage I learn alongside John Taylor as we assemble formidable slabs of stone into steps leading up Gile Mountain. Hundreds of tons of mica schist have been deposited in a sinuous walkway, leading seventh-tenths of a mile from the small parking lot on Turnpike Road in Norwich to its fire tower.
These steps are the artistic form of a trail, made necessary because of its function: to make nature accessible to hikers.
As I worked under John’s tutelage this summer with the Upper Valley Trails Alliance, this question often came to mind: Is trail building an art form, or simply labor? Is it more akin to construction work or architecture?
Certainly the medium of step building on trails is simple; they’re often made up of rocks, sometimes gathered from the surrounding landscape, other times hauled in from a quarry.
Yet these rocks are more than just a place to put the feet while ascending in elevation. From graceful S-curves to perfectly level planes, these trails bear the subtle marks of the artist.
Taylor, a master of the art of trail building, has been in the business for several decades, and this November marks the 10th anniversary of his work at the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. Examples of his craftsmanship exist across throughout New Hampshire and Vermont, from Mount Moosilauke to Mount Ascutney.
As an apprentice, I learned to gauge a sense for the natural flow of a trail. John’s suggestions are gentle, and his teachings understated. With his disntinct Canadian accent, the Ontario native may offer something like, “That’s a good step, Victoria. Now let’s align it with the curve of the trail, eh?”
I’ve watched him quietly move monstrous rocks after I stepped back from them in awe. He drops them with a puff of dirt into their rightful place.
“Down we go,” he lets out with a smile.
John’s work is dependent on his physical strength, but force alone doesn’t build a structurally sound trail, or an aesthetically pleasing one. Vitruvius, a Roman architect from the first century B.C., proposes the three keys to any structure in his work, Dearchitectura: firmitas, utilitas et venustas, which translates to solidity, utility, and beauty. John’s solid steps achieve all three of these qualities; they are structures for the ages. As trail builder, he transfigures pieces of rock into lasting works of stone.
My understanding of trail building and writing as parallel crafts hit me during a drive to a work site with John. It was early morning, and I was half-dozing as John drove his Prius along the misty highway. He reflected about a recent column I wrote for the UVTA, and I murmur in consensus and thanks.
“What I like about your writing is your choice of words,” he said. “It’s your wordsmithery, you know. You have a knack for picking the words that mean exactly what you want to say and assembling them in just the right order. It’s really good craftsmanship.”
My ears perked up. Wordsmithery. Craftsmanship. These, I realized, are the most profound words of approval I could receive from a man who has dedicated his life to stonework.
John had transposed notions of quality from his field, trail building, with mine, writing. His praise of my work gives me a flash of insight into the nature of his own trade. Trail building, like writing, is indeed a craft: It requires careful technique, years of practice, an adherence to rules of structure, and scrutinous revision.
Yet these components do not reduce trail building or writing to mere labors. Rather, they support the integrity of these trades as arts. The placement of a stone is not determined only by the trail builder’s intention, but also by the weight, size, and other nuances of each piece of rock. So, too, the placement of an idea is not determined by the writer’s intention alone, but also by the weight and nuance of her particular subject of interest. The building blocks of a structure are already there, and the artist guides them into place. Strength can move rocks, but artistry places stones.
Back on the trail, John digs up erratics from the glacial till that is Vermont’s soil and tosses them into a nearby pile for later use. “We won’t use them now, but never throw any material you dig up too far from the trail,” he says. “You’ll use it later.”
Some of the largest slabs are destined to become comfortable steps, while others are long and flat enough to be toothed into the ground as supportive cribbing. Still others are too awkward to be anything but crushed for filling structures.
This process of sorting and rearranging, I realize, mirrors my own thrifty technique for building a piece of writing. As I brainstorm, digging into my thoughts and experiences, I pile odd or awkward sentences at the bottom of my document.
Even if they don’t fit in now, I always come back to the pile to sort through and repurpose ideas, sometimes chipping away a word here or there before fitting the fragment back into the main body of work. I’m not willing to part with any useful sliver until it’s been deemed completely extraneous to my purpose.
Indeed, ideas are words with a purpose.
Victoria Pipas was the leader of UVTA’s 2016 Outdoor Odyssey Trail Corps. More information on the Upper Valley Trails Alliance can be found at www.uvtrails.org.