Daybreak on the mountain

Hiking through the pitch-black forest, I noticed the dirt trail had disappeared and leaves covered the forest floor beneath me.

Had I lost the trail?

I raised my headlamp and lit up the trees around me. I was only a few feet off the path, so I got back on it and continued climbing. It was late November, and I was hiking the relatively steep 1.8-mile Ranger Trail to the 2,162-foot summit of Poke-O-Moonshine Mountain to catch a sunrise.

The hike was quiet except for the occasional sound of a passing vehicle on the nearby Northway. This was notable because on other sunrise hikes I had done during the fall, sounds seemed to stand out before the light emerged. As I hiked through the dark on Baker Mountain in Saranac Lake, I could hear machinery grinding away across town, and the more subtle nearby sound of rustling beech leaves still clinging to branches. On Cobble Lookout in Wilmington, the hike was mainly silent except when I heard the flapping wings of a large bird—perhaps an owl—fly overhead twice, as if it were checking me