Editor’s note: Walt Amses is a writer and former educator who lives in Calais.
“I’ve lived in good climate and it bores the hell out of me.”
— John Steinbeck
[I]t’s October. The full wetsuit protects me from the ever-chillier water but sends a far more sinister message, reinforced by my extremities, each of which protrudes from the latex, climatological data collectors, finally concluding: The weirdest of weird summers is reluctantly stepping aside, perhaps setting the stage for an even weirder autumn. Dry, brown leaves skitter across the surface of the pond as they’ve been doing for several weeks, early and drab by most measures. The dearth of color on the surrounding hillsides looks as if we skipped this month entirely, jumping instead into early November.
The only thing on a somewhat normal schedule is the water temperature, which is close to where it should be: ranging between mere “shrinkage” (see George Costanza) and the perfect habitat for a walrus. Several weeks of dry warm weather seemed to extend the summer that never was, making the pond more accommodating in mid-September than it ever was in June or July. Although crowding the strip of dirt that passes for a beach one 80-degree weekend with grateful, albeit somewhat confused sun worshipers, the water’s warmth continues to slip away during the lengthening nights and foggy mornings.
A day trip to the New Hampshire seacoast one day makes matters worse. Southern Vermont and most of the Granite State seem to have vibrantly colored foliage, perhaps midway toward peak, with enough green leaves remaining to ensure that they’re far from done. The brilliant panorama extends all the way to the Atlantic, where salt marshes near Rye are ringed with crimson swamp maples prompting both awe and envy. I wonder what gives.
A check-in the following day with Roger Hill at Weathering Heights, his forecasting service in Worcester, only serves to confirm my worst fears — a variety of circumstances are at work that may indeed contribute to either an extremely dull or possibly AWOL foliage season in Central Vermont. Although quick to say this is not his specialty, Hill did share several of his theories with me about why our foliage seems to be both a month ahead and a month behind.
Ranging from the complex: photosynthesis, chemical reactions that produce sugar, and longer autumn nights reducing the chlorophyll that keeps leaves green, to the very simple: 25 days without precipitation at the precise time moisture was necessary to nudge things in the right direction. Along with slowing the color changeover, the dry spell contributed to leaves drying prematurely and falling to the ground. Hill was also quick to remind me that seldom is one factor responsible for such phenomena and that climate change must be considered in light of the past several years’ weather extremes, from blistering temperatures and strengthening tropical storms to devastating fires in the West.
Later that morning, undeterred by low expectations, a friend and I venture out for a hike on an old logging road that’s transitioned to a recreational trail over what locals call Woodbury Mountain. As we’re pulling out of my driveway I’m struck by the explosion of color that seems to have happened overnight. Our 10-minute ride to the trailhead is so remarkably different from the day before — as if someone finally flipped the correct switch — I can hardly suppress my glee.
We huff and puff up and down slopes steeper than either of us expected in quest of a vaguely remembered level segment of trail that we eventually realize was a figment of our imagination … perhaps a product of having made our way here years ago on fresher legs. Much of the time we’re walking in an archway of surprising brilliance, sun filtered through a kaleidoscope of maples that would do Timothy Leary proud. A small trickling stream yields a swirl of muddy foam topped with a vermillion circle of leaves that looks like the work of a woodland barista. All seems suddenly perfect.
Returning home, the first thing I do is call Hill back to report my findings. He’s already come to a similar realization via drone reconnaissance and he’s just as out-of-proportion elated over the heightened color in the foothills of the Worcester Range as I am a few miles away in North Calais. It appears that an hour or so of moderate rain the night before was the spark necessary to ignite an explosion of reds, yellows and oranges across the previously dull landscape.
The following day, still buzzing from the autumnal turn of events, I decide — based on having seen several women swimming without wetsuits — that it’s more a matter of a strong will than anything else, forgetting momentarily that they’d all endured childbirth. I go forth embraced by nothing more than a swimsuit and bad judgement. My experience is brief but bracing, a recalibration of my own perception of masculinity as well as an exclamation point on two extremely strange, overlapping seasons.
