Sunday, October 29, 2006

In honor of Daylight Savings Time in the U.S.

While I am personally partial to Autumn, many Adirondackers believe that Winter is the most beautiful time of year. It is a time of crystalline light and endless silences, when the land is cast in white. Sometimes, it seems that the Adirondacks are at their most forbidding in Winter, but they are also at their simplest. It is then that the dizzying species of flora and fauna lay dormant, and the land is reduced to ice, snow and wood. The sun, low in the sky, is so enfeebled that one can almost gaze at it in a manner that would be unthinkable in Summer. By January, the lakes freeze to a depth of two feet and thus become terra firma, to such a point that locals are known even to drive cars on them (not that I would ever dare). I do go out on the lake with my snowshoes and enjoy walking out to its center, where I am surrounded by nothing but the purest white.

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