Last Lingering Traces of Color

The colors fade quickly once you get past the middle of October, bringing on fall's second phase: the grays and browns of old November.  A few leathery oak leaves will rattle and snarl from their treetops the whole way into April, when fresh buds push them to the ground.

My two favorite months are placed side by side, but otherwise very different from each other.  Two sisters: the Diva and the Spinster, October and November.

 I couldn't make it to the Laurel Highlands today, but the woods around Pittsburgh sufficed.  The only splashes of color that remain are way up high, the ruddy, muted reds and burnt oranges at the tops of the oak trees, and way down low, the yellow-brown of small beech trees, largely still in leaf.

 The wind blows in so hard from the flatlands to the west of Pennsylvania that autumn leaves get blown down early.  And yet, this is a lovely time, too.  The forest is more pungent now with the strong aroma of decaying leaves.  The skies tend gray, the sun visible only as a whitish sphere half-concealed in murky cloud.  The bugs are gone, and most of the birds have fallen silent.  My only companions on the trail today were a chipmunk and what looked to be a barn owl.

 Oh, and one human, whom I avoided.  I hiked back into the Pioneer backpackers' camp at Raccoon Creek--just because I only had three hours to spend and didn't know where else to go.  The camp is a little village of rustic wooden shelters, all spaced very far apart.  As I approached the familiar place--which I've always had to myself--I smelled wood smoke, and my heart sank.

 Some hardy soul was encamped in my favorite, most isolated site.  He sat on the deck of the shelter in his red fleece and gazed at me from afar, as if to dare me to take the spot from him.  I was almost tempted to do it, too.

 A part of me wanted to go talk to the guy.  "Woodsing" is a solitary pleasure for me.  I have friends, but I almost never hike with them.  I go to the trees to escape people.  And it was for that very reason that I wanted to talk to this guy.  He clearly wanted to be alone, too.  I wanted to know another woodland loner like myself.  How many of us are there?  How do we interact when our paths cross?  Are we natural enemies?

 I occasionally meet other hikers on the trails, though I typically pick areas that are lightly traveled.  But this was different somehow.  This guy was making the forest his own.  He had a fire going.  He looked as if he'd spent the night there by himself.  But I passed him by without a word.  In my heart, I knew that we both wanted it that way.

Against all odds, a few brilliant maples still hold onto their leaves with shades of green still close to the trunk.  Next week I'll be hiking up North, where the leaves are surely almost all down.  (The tree in this photo isn't a maple, just a hanger-on.)