Foliage Report # 4
In southern Vermont, color is nearing its peak. One clue to how the season is progressing in Berkshire County is a several-acre triangular patch on the side of East Mountain, north of Williamstown and North Adams, visible from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, Church Street in North Adams and on up into Clarksburg. A former farm field that has grown over with trees younger than those that surround it turns color sooner. It is just beginning to turn.
Color is less noticeable so far down in the valleys. At this point, wind and rain at the end of September took a few leaves, but most are still on the trees. Most of the colors are still muted, with wonderfully subtle shades, in anticipation of what is to come. Even in the valleys, here and there fully turned individual trees, often young maples planted by the street, stand as beacons.
People get a bit antsy. Is the color coming? When is it coming? Isn’t it late this year? Will it be a dull season? A certain amount of nervousness is part of any dramatic event. It will happen.
But I like this time when the predominant color remains green, reminding us how fortunate we are to live where climate conspires to provide luxurious growth and reminding us that we are at the beginning of our annual autumnal excitement. The deciduous forest hereabouts still projects a feeling of something about to happen, rather than something that’s waning.
Again, a reminder that Mt. Greylock roads remain closed to automobiles this year; as a result, the town of Adams will not host the Greylock Ramble on October 13, Columbus Day—although nothing prevents you and me from climbing the mountain on foot that day. And, on some Friday this month, Morton Owen Schapiro is going to poke his head out of a window in the Williams College president’s house, check the weather, and announce “Mountain Day,” when Williams students will be released from classes to climb the Mt. Greylock, where cider, doughnuts and mountain song will await them.
Lauren Stevens
A newspaper columnist, reporter and magazine writer, Stevens is the author of several books, including the enlarged 3rd edition of his Hikes and Walks in the Berkshire Hills and the 8th edition of The Berkshire Book. Stevens is also an environmental columnist for The Berkshire Eagle and an environmental planning consultant. He founded the Hoosic River Watershed Association in 1986 and has served on the board continually and as president several times since. Stevens taught English and environmental studies and served as Dean of Freshman at Williams College.