Each autumn, Wentworth Valley beckons Vilis and me to hike hills cloaked with maples, beeches, birches, and scattered conifers, the deciduous trees’ leaves painting the landscape with the flaming beauty of oranges, reds, and yellows. This afternoon, we drove a half hour west to the valley, noting that some trees on the hillsides were already bare of leaves, no doubt the result of yesterday’s wild winds and earlier storms.

For two and a half hours, we tramped trails on the hills south of the youth hostel, following signs labeled Main Road, Fall Line, Look Off, as well as doing a little bushwalking along what we eventually decided was a creek bed camouflaged with fallen leaves. Water trickled downhill on steep sections of track and pooled in mucky depressions, making for wet sneakers. Rain spit onto us at the trail’s start, but gave way to brooding cloud and cool wind that nipped at my exposed hands. A small white and black dog that presumably belonged to the hostel keeper accompanied us, seeming to know the trails well and earning the nickname of ‘Ghost Dog of Wentworth.’

For years, Vilis competed in orienteering meets held at Wentworth, racing to find controls on these hills. Sometimes our sons competed, too, and I did once. (Vilis particularly enjoyed orienteering in pouring rain and once participated in a night meet.)

Every year that Vilis and I have lived in Nova Scotia, we’ve heeded the call of these hills, hiking among the bright leaves in autumn and sometimes braving the black flies in summer. And each year until they went off to university, we dragged our two sons along with us –  first in baby or toddler backpacks, then on their own sturdy legs, and then on legs swifter than ours – laughing when they threw handfuls of crisp leaves at each other and tried to shove them down our shirts. Always, we brought treats with us to share while resting on the rocks at Look Off – sometimes sweets or a full lunch, once a huge canteloupe I grew during a hot, dry summer; today, rich hazelnut chocolate crisps.

Today, as on Wentworth hikes of years past, we gazed from Look Off out at the valley, seeing the snaking highway, hearing a train whistle, but mostly drinking in the sight of long hills – the Cobequid Mountains –  cloaked with forest stretching far into the distance. Then we headed downhill through autumn bright, autumn chilled woodland and arrived back at the hostel, where the Ghost Dog of Wentworth – which had vanished at our farthest point on the trails – awaited us.