Ed McGuirk Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Tennessee–North Carolina-West Virginia or New England ? | |
I live in Massachusetts, grew up in New Hampshire, and have photographed New England Fall color for over twenty years now (it never gets old)
The past several years the timing of New England foliage has been disrupted by warm weather in August and September, as well as a bad drought. These factors led foliage run late in both 2015 and 2016 (2015 was almost two weeks later than normal. The drought in 2016 led many people to believe it would be a bad foliage season, but in fact it contributed to very strong red colors, although the yellows and oranges were not as vibrant as normal.
However in 2017 it has been pretty rainy this spring and summer (ending our dought), and temps in August and September have been cooler than normal. We've been getting a lot of sunny days with cool nights in Aug/Sep, which are prime conditions to set up an excellent foliage year. Various fNew England foliage forecasts I have seen say this should be a very vibrant year with peak coming at "normal" times to maybe even a little bit early (take the early part with a grain of salt).
So you are planning to come from 9/28 to 10/3. In a "normal" year like 2017 is predicted to be, that is way too early for all but the very northern parts of VT, NH and Maine. Thus you should go the northeast Kingdom of VT, north of St Johnsbury, the Connecticut Lakes region near Pittsburg, NH, or Rangely Lakes / Baxter State Park in Maine. The main areas of the White and Green Mountains (Conway, NH, Lincoln, NH, Woodstock Vt, Waits River VT (the scene of your images), Central VT will all still be mostly green. For these areas to be approaching peak, you should be visiting from about 10/5 through 10/12. Acadia goes around mid-October.
If you are into farms/barns/quaint villages, then northeast and central Vermont are for you. If you like more wilderness landscapes with mountains, waterfalls, and rivers, then the White Mountains of New Hampshire are better. That is a generalization, both VT and NH have some of both the pastoral and wild landscapes.
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