Up in the White Mountains, locals call this time of year “stick season.” As you might guess, the name comes from the deciduous trees, now bare after a brief few weeks of showing off their colorful foliage. From a distance, the green of the conifer trees growing on the mountainsides—spruce, balsam, hemlock, and white pine—stands out among the patches of gray created by the stands of naked maple and beech trees. Golden tamaracks, the only deciduous conifer trees I know of, can occasionally be spotted among the swaths of green as they prepare to shed their needles for the winter.
Stick season is my favorite time of year in the mountains. Blocked by foliage during the summer, the views stretch far and wide. In spite of sunset coming earlier, the forest is brighter. There’s no snow yet, at least not much, so the ski areas are still closed. Traffic, even on weekends, is at a minimum. Hotel rooms are cheap and plentiful. Parking at trailheads is almost always open.
The best thing about stick season is the quiet. I can hike in the still forest and listen to the calls of boreal chickadees and imagine the mountains as they were before people flocked to them. Occasionally, I cross paths with another person on the trail who, like me, can see beauty in places where many others don’t. We nod and say hello, fellow travelers among the sticks.
ENP
*NO AI TRAINING
Emilie-Noelle Provost 