The alarm went off at 4:10 a.m. in a motel room in Winthrop, and I did the math every larch chaser eventually memorizes: headlights on the North Cascades Highway by 4:45, trailhead parking lot before 6:15, or surrender the spot and hike an extra mile from the shoulder. My crew and I had timed this … Read more
The clock in the rental read 5:41 a.m. when I pulled out of Lincoln, New Hampshire, with a thermos hissing in the cupholder and my headlights the only ones pointed east on Route 112. My photographer was still assembling her tripod in the passenger seat, and neither of us said a word, because there was … Read more
The thermometer in my rental car read 38 degrees when I pulled into the Oconaluftee visitor center parking lot last October, and 74 by the time I found barbecue in Cherokee two hours later. That is not a complaint. That is just what September and October do in American mountain country, and every fall I … Read more