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Photograph by Michael Melford
Leaves of maple and birch make an art of dying on the dark surface of Lake Placid. With thousands of lakes and ponds, the park is a favorite of paddlers and the center of a century-old and still thriving boatbuilding tradition.
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Photograph by Michael Melford
Sunlight dapples the shoulders of Algonquin and Wright, two of the more than 40 so-called High Peaks that rise above 4,000 feet. Once blighted by logging and industry, the region has undergone a renaissance of woods and waters.
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Photograph by Michael Melford
With its tenacious trees and rebounding wildlife, Adirondack Park is a miracle of regeneration. On the trail to Goodnow Mountain, a yellow birch appears to be ingesting a boulder left behind by a glacier.
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Photograph by Michael Melford
Leaves float past a fallen birch.
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Photograph by Michael Melford
Ash and maple leaves float on Cascade Lake, mere particles in the biomass the park sheds every autumn in the form of fallen leaves.
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Photograph by Michael Melford
Vegetation along the shores of Lower St. Regis Lake bends to the will of the wind.
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Photograph by Michael Melford
An underwater camera offers a fish's-eye view of lily pads on Eagle Lake. Sulfur dioxide from power plants made many Adirondack lakes so acidic they became fishless. Thanks to the Clean Air Act and other measures, some now show signs of recovery.
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Photograph by Michael Melford
A common loon swims on Little Clear Pond. The loon's echoing wail is the plaintive voice of the Adirondacks.
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Photograph by Michael Melford
Morning fog shrouds the surface of Bear Pond and the valleys below St. Regis Mountain.
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Photograph by Michael Melford
Conifers green the crevices of Catamount Mountain while the forest below is in its last incandescence before winter.
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Photograph by Michael Melford
The palette of the Adirondack forest shifts with the seasons. In the delicate tracery of a viburnum leaf, summer’s green gives way to autumn’s red as chlorophyll fades and underlying pigments emerge.
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Photograph by Michael Melford
Seasonal chemistry brings a blush to a stand of fern.
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Photograph by Michael Melford
Winter whitens Mount Van Hoevenberg, its 2,940-foot summit clad in balsam fir and spruce. Taller peaks that reach into the alpine zone are crowned with stunted evergreens called krummholz, from the German, "crooked wood."
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Photograph by Michael Melford
Completing the cycle of the seasons, a leafless maple bears up under the onslaught of winter.
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Photograph by Michael Melford
The seasons have subtle edges in the Adirondacks. Spring blurs into summer, and winter almost always comes before autumn is really done. Near Chapel Pond the first snow falls before the maples have dropped their leaves.
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