Equinox Mountain Skyline Drive

Author's Comments

You pay at a small booth and then you drive upward for five miles, and the world opens as you climb. By the time you reach the top you are nearly four thousand feet above the valley you started in, and the air is genuinely different. Cooler. Thinner. Often moving faster than you expected. What Equinox offers is rare in this part of the country - a true 360-degree summit you can reach without a hard climb, which means you can be there for the light rather than recovering from the trail. Late September is when I prefer it. The Greens to the east are starting to turn, the Adirondacks sit blue and layered to the west, and on the clearest afternoons you can make out the White Mountains as a pale ridge on the northern horizon. Five states, they say. I have never tried to count them. Golden hour here is generous because the summit sees the sun longer than the valley does, and the light comes in low and sideways across ridge after ridge. A wide lens makes sense for the obvious frame. A longer lens makes more sense for what I actually find myself photographing - the way distant ranges stack into each other and go progressively bluer, the compression of geography into something almost abstract. Bring more layers than you think you need. The wind at the top has turned me around more than once, and a calm valley does not mean a calm summit. Check the road status before you drive up. When the weather closes in, it closes in completely, and there is no view to be had above the cloud line.

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