Densely populated with cold, snowy winters, the Empire State has one of the oldest and most accessible networks of ski resorts in the country. It's home to three major mountain ranges-the Adirondacks, Catskills, and parts of the Appalachians-along with a thick sprinkling of steep, glacier-carved hills. Enthusiasm for the sport swelled when Lake Placid hosted the 1932 Olympic Games, and under the New Deal, the Civilian Conservation Core helped supercharge the development of New York's trails and infrastructure.
A patchwork quilt of rustic reds, fiery oranges, and bright golds stretch endlessly into the horizon. From my perch atop Castle Rock, the lake sparkles, dotted with a smattering of foliage-cloaked islands. The autumn air is crisp and refreshing in one of my favorite places to explore this time of year; Blue Mountain Lake in the Adirondack Mountains. The tiny hamlet of Blue Mountain Lake might be small, but it delivers big on beauty.
My ignorance of loons was such that when I first saw a loon while kayaking, I thought it was a duck. To my great shame, I went so far as to ask these two other kayakers who were also looking at the loon, "What kind of duck is that?" That is how I learned what loons looked like. This is also when I took the only photo of a loon I got the entire weekend.