It is impossible to capture the experience of being outdoors in words. Well-written prose will communicate a lot. However there will always be moments that get left out, or, more likely, moments that words can’t adequately describe.

Similarly, photographs are good but limited. While a picture might be worth 1,000 words, an image devoid of context can’t really share the precise words intended by the one who saw the moment in reality.

But in trying, we are able to revisit moments ourselves and share something of what stands out as we head into the woods and waters.

…like that fantastic, unparalleled, invigorating first cup of coffee as you head out in the early morning hours.

Suburbia giving way to countryside is a cathartic moment. There might be a loss in the integrity of cellular service, but the increase in scenery, pie stands, and solitude easily makes up for that.

Interstates give way to secondary highways, which become state roads and, if you’re lucky, well-maintained gravel roads after that. The temptation to keep the windows down to smell the fresh air is tempered by the desire to keep the inside of your car from getting covered in a fine grey dust.

The hole next to the pull-off always looks fishy. Always. Without exception. This particular hole forced me to act against my better judgment. Sneaking up and making that careful, first presentation of the day I was rewarded with a fat, 6-inch fallfish (not pictured).

Like the parking pull-off, the first stream crossing on the trail looks fishy. Always. It might be worth your time. But committing to fish high up in the mountain takes discipline and patience. Not having those things I did cast here and didn’t even catch a fallfish.

There is a whitetail deer in this picture. I see deer all the time. All the time. But there is something different about deer, songbirds, and even squirrels in the woods. In my subdivision backyard they’re real but not very authentic. Deep in the forest they’re quiet, skittish, and fascinating.

Every once in a while, a trout or ten is caught.

Sometimes you run across pretty things. Sometimes, they might even be tasty. Often there is trepidation about figuring that out, Because unless one is a botanist, I assume there is always the yeah, but it also might give me diarrhea thought in the back of the mind.

You can capture a lot with pictures and words. But this 600×450 pixel image can’t sum up the 180-degree panorama of the Appalachians. It can’t describe the warm smell of grasses and pines. It is incapable of expressing how good it felt to take of my shoes, shaking the pebbles out and letting my feet stretch and dry in the sun. It doesn’t show, let alone convey the taste of, a cold beverage.

But if you’ve been in the woods, you see and read these things and you get it.