Where the Trees Float

I remember vividly the picture of Singletary Lake in Our State magazine from 2019, I believe. For some reason, I thought the picture was on the cover but maybe not? Wherever it was, it sat lying flat on my coffee table for about a week, haunting me. It still does, with the magazine long gone.

Earlier this year, on a cold, cold, windy January day, we made the trip to Bladen County towards the Eastern part of North Carolina to visit it. It was windy and so cold my face was stuck in one expression. The sun was trying hard to peer through the overcast sky but although its light was there we hardly felt its heat.

We drove down to the Singletary Lake State Park on an almost empty highway, on a Sunday. Everyone must have been indoors, around the fire – they cannot very well be at church during a pandemic, I reckon. But a fire is what one needed that day.

Research tells you that Singletary Lake is part of a huge chain of what they call bay lakes which were formed simply by precipitation water accumulating in the crevices of the earth. They’re usually round or oval shaped, Singletary Lake being oval. Some of these lakes have dried out over time and were transformed into farmland. If you want to know more, check out this article: https://www.ourstate.com/the-mystery-of-carolina-bays-north-carolina/.

Once at the park, we reviewed a few maps to find a trail. It was easy to find one, because there were not many. There were two of them, connected to one another, making sort of an eight-shaped course – Singletary Loop trail. The trail is flat and super easy, in addition to being very short (maybe a mile all in all).

You walk through a number of terrains along the lake and enormous pine trees and cypress trees are towering over your steps, as if in a cathedral. The walk has a ceremonious, sanctified feel to it. It’s quiet, except for the wind howling through the branches.

The terrains are anywhere from slippery clay to sand, moss, and regular soil. One minute you think you have a good, strong foothold under you, the next minute you’re sinking in moss or sand and you’re wondering if it’s supposed to feel that way or if you’re over a sand trap.

After walking a few yards, we realize the trail is flooded ahead of us. It is just covered by water, like it’s not even a trail anymore, but a river. We advance with caution and hope to find some higher ground around the trail, which we do. We step on branches and leaves and I am thinking: there is no way anyone can pay me enough money to walk this trail in the summer! The thought of the number of snakes in the warm months makes my skin crawl.

As you’re walking along the lake on its benches, you feel like you’re under the sea level … or lake level, as it were … The winds have turned the lake into a sea, with white-capped rushing waves, crashing into its low shores. The wave foam is splashing us and wetting our shoes … At one point, the trail is completely swallowed by water which turned into an ad-hoc stream crossing right across it. There is no going around this one and we had to turn around and go back, taking the opposite direction to see if we can complete the loop.

There are two areas that this trail crosses: one is slightly more remote from the lake (you can still see the lake from it, but the waves are not going to wet your shoes), and one is right on the lake (the longer trek). When we walk right along the shores, we see the cypress trees leaf-less, clad in Spanish moss, swishing in the wind, hundreds of small black birds, or starlings dressing them up like tree ornaments. They are strong and tall, their thick trunks springing right from the water, alone, unattached to the land we’re watching them from. It’s the image that’s been haunting me ever since I saw the pictures.

I normally look at trees as growing organically from the earth, like earth’s babies, their connection un-severed. These trees have no connection to any earth, it seems, they are happy to make it on their own floating on water … It's like the superfluous and everchanging realm of water is what birthed them and not the steady, permanent one of the earth. It defies logic and what we know about trees … You feel suspended between this world and another one, one that is possible (you’re awake and seeing it with your own eyes) but dubious. Although you’re clearly walking on land, the medium that wins here is definitely the water … The lake, the streaming flooded trails, the waves crashing at your feet, the trees surrounded by nothing but water, as if they were floating away … There is an eerie peace about it all, despite the loud wind and the crashing of the waves. The silence is primordial, and so is the rustling …

For some reason I thought these places are accessible only by boat. But you can walk right around them and no amount of beauty or awe is diminished. The lure of the complete silence, the wind, the beauty and magic of floating trees will be beckoning me back still for many more years …

I’ll leave you with some shots of this magical place …

A mossy/ woodsy trail towards Singletary Lake

A sandy trail 

That time when we had to turn around because the trail was completely immersed in water 

The floating trees at Singletary Lake

Waves, and moss, and reeds ... 

The pier of Singletary Lake. Click on the picture to see the whole album.