Travellers' Tales: Invasion of the leaf-peepers

19 October 2014 - 02:03 By Peter Davies
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AUTUMN HARVEST: A country road in Connecticut.
AUTUMN HARVEST: A country road in Connecticut.

Watching leaves change colour is big business in the US, writes Peter Davies

This time of year in America's northeast, the first tinge of winter begins announcing itself in the early morning - a sliver of shiver like a rogue brass note among the wind instruments; a barely perceptible difference in the sound rustling leaves make.

For someone like myself, suckled and schooled under southern hemisphere skies, this was always a dispiriting time. There is, however, a silver lining to winter's billowing cumulonimbus cloud.

Winter is preceded by a spectacular natural phenomenon that draws bus-loads of folk from all over the country. From mid-September to late-October, "fall foliage" is the phrase on everyone's lips, as guesswork begins as to when and where the autumn leaves will "turn" best, which towns will offer the finest vantage points and just how far one intends taking "leaf peeping" this year.

Watching leaves change colour is big business in the US, and is taken extremely seriously. There are blogs and forums, live webcams, two-week tours with all the trimmings, self-proclaimed "leaf whisperers" with an alleged inside-edge on "turning" times. You name it.

The October 13 Columbus Day long-weekend is usually peak fall foliage time in Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Vermont and Rhode Island. All over these states, lengthy queues of vehicles snake through quiet country back-roads at the speed - yes - at the speed of a changing season; irritating the locals and clogging the single-lane thoroughfares while their occupants crane necks at statuesque maples, birches and oaks quietly going about their business of breaking down chlorophyll. The leaf-peeping invasion is a necessary evil for local folk, however, as out-of-towners add freely to the local coffers by swarming boutique B&Bs in the Berkshires, quaffing designer cider in Simsbury and sampling quahog clams in Newport.

Being in Mama Nature's hands, the length and duration of fall foliage is unpredictable. The most important variable is when exactly the rains come. Wet Septembers and Octobers cause a delay in "turning" and can wreak havoc with leaf-peeping schedules. The number of daylight hours and the temperature also play a part, as does the amount of sugar in a leaf. When fall days are sunny and cool, and the nights chilly but not freezing, the brightest foliage colours will blaze.

We lived near Talcott Mountain just west of Hartford, a hill with a tower and an overly-grand name, which nevertheless provided a great vantage point to watch the green leaves of summer segueing into brilliant orange or fiery red or golden bronze - which a time-lapse photo taken over a month of Sundays illustrated brilliantly.

Our daily trip to our daughters' school in Simsbury was a free, front-and-centre peeper's paradise. We passed by Hop Meadow Country Club with its key-note sugar maple standing guard at the entrance. This magnificent specimen transformed from bottle green to a deep golden, almost translucent bronze in the fall. Much as we tried, the photos never quite did justice to the dazzling honey-hued shawl it wore for a month.

On a road leading to school was a white clapboard house with deep red shutters, which in autumn perfectly matched the scarlet carpet of fallen leaves in the front yard. I'm not sure whether it was co-incidence or effect, but the owner always parked his car in the front during fall - the vehicle being a similar blazing red colour.

The ultimate fall foliage vantage point is from way on high. Flying into Bradley International, north-west of Hartford, Connecticut, one is treated to an endless patchwork of autumn tints stretching to the densely forested horizon. White wooden buildings stand out like vivid chess pieces among russet, red, violet, crimson, gold, mango, bronze, orange, and purple - more colours than the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat narrator managed to recite before succumbing to breathlessness.

Autumn in America's reality check kicks in, however, once the leaves spiral to the ground. A state-of-the-art leaf blower is an indispensable tool if you live in New England. Today's magnificent honey maple leaf is tomorrow's musty pile of damp grey mulch.

And those leaves don't rake themselves. - © Peter Davies

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