While I do try to appreciate all the seasons of the year, I think October is the best. For the few of us cold-lovers out there, it’s a colorful harbinger of the ice and snow to come. Salmon begin running up Great Lakes tributaries, geese fly south, small mammals rush to fill dens with nuts and stalks and brook trout find their way into the headwaters for the spawn. In the years of my protracted hikes, it meant a frosty grand finale for the long haul.

Here’s some recent photography of fall from Mt. Desert Island, Maine.