In early November, a hard rain usually drives down out of the northeast and strips New England's hardwood forests bare. You wake up in the morning, somewhere in the Berkshires, and all the leaves lie sodden against the earth, a cold wet light trickling down through empty branches. Only the oaks and beeches still cling to their foliage after a night like that, when the treetops wail in a hollow wind.
But in October there is a different wind, a dry benign breeze blowing out of the west, sifting the woods and combing the grasses and goldenrod. Fallen leaves—still dry and crisp—rise and scurry down the road, across the pastures, ready to fall and rise and fall again. That wind can blow all day long in October, showing one trick, one improvisation, after another. The hickories surrender their yellow leaves to it, discarding them high overhead like pennants streaming downwind. But then a calm comes, and a still night settles in, temperature dropping, wood smoke straight as a flagpole. In New England's flinty climate, this is the time of times.
Many people, even many New Englanders, think of the turning of the foliage in October as a kind of weather, a color front sweeping down out of the north. And there is truly something weatherlike in its scope. Whole watersheds and mountain ridges go up in a chromatic firestorm. The look of an entire region shifts in the space of a few weeks, as if the clouds skidding across the sky were raining small increments of pigment. Peak color is what the foliage reports tend to track, and peak color is what most tourists come clamoring for. You can hear a certain anxiety in their voices—a worrying whether they've come at just the consummation of autumn's palette. They park somewhere in the middle distance and look out at the roof of the woods.
But what matters in autumn—in every season—is succession. The long life history of all those incandescent trees—the sugar maples and red maples, the red oaks and white ashes, the beeches and yellow birches—undoes the very idea of a seasonal peak. To visitors, the changing leaves may provoke thoughts of death, a last riotous frenzy of color before the end. But autumn is really the precursor to rebirth. The falling of those leaves restores the fertility to the soil. And to grasp autumn's succession is to get out of the car and walk in under the roof of the woods, giving up the long view, the landscape, for something far more intimate—the details of the moment. After all, everything is undergoing fall—not just the canopy overhead. The motherwort has dried. The thistles have blown. The cohort of songbirds has long since changed.
Most of us think of summer as a season of light, but inside the woods it is really the season of densest shade. Walking through the New England woods in summer is like walking along the floor of an ocean of shadow. Sunlight barely penetrates the leaf canopy overhead. By mid-October, the trees are beginning to relent. Every falling leaf opens the ceiling a little more. Every leaf that reaches the ground seems to bring a scattering of sun with it. The woods start to feel more porous, more welcoming. The duff underfoot deepens, crunching as you walk. The welcome scent of decay permeates the woods. The light carries so much color that you can almost feel yourself turning a ripe sugar-maple orange, a hickory yellow. Full sunlight—when you finally step out of the woods—seems surprisingly pale and weaker than you remembered.
One of the best ways to understand the succession of autumn is to walk along a gravel road—the kind I live on. You can find one almost anywhere in New England. My road rises abruptly, through a thicket of hemlocks and maples, and then it opens out onto a pasture where three black cows graze in the drying grass. Across the pasture, the woods have already turned, the sumac at the open edges first, then the red maples in the wetland, and the sugar maples and birches above them. People have been passing along that road for centuries, and it has worn its way down into the earth. The rock outcroppings are thick with moss and ferns, the air still humid nearby. A small stream runs down from open ground into the heart of the woods. Where the leaves have always fallen, along the pasture's edges, the grass is still rank with growth, even this late in the year.
In some strange way, though, even a walk down a gravel road edged by turning trees is an effort to speed up the season—almost like trying to arrive just in time for peak color. I walk and I walk, but sooner or later, I always settle on one tree. Not one of the hickories—they go too fast. Not one of the birches, if only because their architecture is too poor. I always end up finding a sugar maple, big in the bole, with the slight asymmetry of a tree that gets more light on one side than it does on the other. All the better if it stands partway out into a pasture, separate from its fellows. I watch it as much as I can—and I always imagine watching it constantly, seeing every leaf come down until the last one has fallen. They would fall, of course, even if I weren't watching. And autumn would come and go even if I didn't find that one tree to consider. But fall is not only something you go to see happening around you. It's something you go to see happening in yourself, as well.
Fall Hideaways
These ultraluxurious retreats provide the perfect place to enjoy autumn at its peak. For a quiet, wooded setting, a blanket of pine needles underfoot, a few boats drifting on a lake, head to the Adirondack Mountains, in upstate New York. The Point, on Upper Saranac Lake, and Lake Placid Lodge have stone fireplaces, feather beds, big soaking tubs and wood paneling. Lake Placid Lodge has seventeen rooms in addition to seventeen cabins, all with rustic furniture made by local artisans. Further north, on the former country estate of William Avery Rockefeller, the Point retains a marvelous sense of privacy. There are just eleven rooms, each unique. The absence of televisions and in-room phones adds to the sense that you've gotten away from it all. Best fall rooms: at Lake Placid Lodge, opt for the Owl's Head cabin. At the Point, ask for Weatherwatch, which has a picture window. Lake Placid Lodge: double rooms from $400 to $475, suites from $650 to $900, cabins from $625 to $1,300. 877-523-2700; lakeplacidlodge.com. The Point: double rooms from $1,250 to $2,500, including all meals. 800-255-3530; thepointresort.com.
In Barnard, Vermont, Twin Farms is exceptionally good at coddling. Once owned by Sinclair Lewis and Dorothy Thompson, it is situated on some 300 acres that encompass forests, fields and a lake. Its ten cottages are set off from one another, so they feel secluded and serene. Best cottage for fall: Treehouse, which has birch-bark and twig-work detailing. Rooms from $950 to $1,100, cottages from $1,100 to $2,600. 800-894-6327; twinfarms.com.
If you would prefer a more cosmopolitan aesthetic, Wheatleigh, in Lenox, Massachusetts, is anything but rustic. The grand Italianate villa, built in the Gilded Age, was redone a few years ago. Stroll the rolling lawns among majestic old specimen trees, some the legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted, who originally landscaped the grounds. Then come home to divine interiors furnished with an eclectic mix of antique and contemporary pieces from around the world. Best room for fall: the Aviary, which has a wonderful view. Double rooms from $545 to $945, suites from $955 to $1,550. 413-637-0610; wheatleigh.com.
To the south, in Washington, Connecticut, is the Mayflower Inn. This twenty-five-room hotel feels like an English country house, with its antique four-poster canopy beds, mahogany wainscoting and club chairs, not to mention chintz. The gardens are exquisite, and the surrounding town is utterly charming. Best room for fall: the Winslow Suite, which overlooks the Shakespeare garden. Double rooms from $400 to $600, suites from $650 to $1,300. 860-868-9466; mayflowerinn.com.
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