Here is another video from Mountain Lake PBS.

Watch Inside Adirondacks: Creating the Wild Center on PBS. See more from Mountain Lake PBS Documentaries.

Even though 40 tree-generations have passed since the glaciers, equilibrium has yet to be established, according to Forests & Trees of the Adirondack High Peaks Region by Edwin H. Ketchledge. Species still compete for territory, he writes, in an ebb and flow of fire, climate, insect and fungal attacks, land use and logging.

Ketchledge’s book, first published by the Adirondack Mountain Club in 1967, is a pocket-size field guide as well as a key to understanding the landscape. Ketch, a veteran of the 10th Mountain Division’s Italy campaign, has dedicated his life to Adirondack conservation, botany and teaching. Only poets have written so fondly about trees. Today he is retired from the State Univer­­sity of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, living in the Adirondack town of Peru with his wife, Jean.

“Fall is the best time to stand on a high summit and visually scour the high country landscape,” he writes. “[The colors] will reveal to you which forest areas have a story to tell.” Fall is also the best time to pick up some luminous leaves from the trail. They too have a story to tell.

via Adirondack Life Blog Archive » Legend of the Fall.