It was a cool morning in early November.  I was following a ridgeline in Harriman State Park, moving through open forest and across grassy knolls, sauntering easy and cheerful as the morning sun set the oak forest glowing in colors of tawny ocher and burnt orange — when suddenly the wind picked up.  It rolled in from the west without warning, jostled treetops, roared like a jet plane.  I zipped my jacket tighter, recognizing in the rough gusts the angry sound of winter.

That evening, I was chatting with my friend Stash Rusin, who’d recently climbed Cornell Mountain in the Catskills on a cold fall day, the sky overcast, the ground at elevation already dusted with snow as light as sugar frosting, although surprisingly no ice.  From the summit, he looked south, but a squall had pushed into the valley and blocked the mountain views.  He made his way through the woods to the north side of the summit and found himself in the middle of a maelstrom.  “The winds were 30-40-50 mph,” he recalled.  They made him feel “so excited – so alive.” Continue reading “Winds” →