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by Marie Javins |
Marie Javins is a comic book editor, colorist, freelance writer and author of "Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik: One Woman's Solo Misadventures Across Africa."
The leaves had changed color early this year, and I knew I had to get out to see them before they fell. The Amtrak Adirondack, which travels between New York City and Montreal, is renowned for its scenic route alongside rivers, mountains, and forests, so it wasn't long before I found myself in Manhattan's Penn Station, looking for the daily train that would spirit me out of the city and into the picturesque countryside. "All aboard!" I hurried to find my seat for the long journey north.
October 11
New York City to Montreal
I sat pensively in the Adirondack's caf car, studying the hair color of the woman in front of me while noting that it matched the bright red patch of leaves alongside the tracks just north of Saratoga Springs, New York.
"What are you looking at?" A fifty-something blond woman with an Australian accent addressed me.
I smiled and fudged the truth a little.
"I was staring at those colorful leaves." I motioned outside the window at the yellow foliage that surrounded the leafy red patch. "I was trying to figure out what color those are. They are not quite yellow, not quite golden?"
We sat silently, names of colors running through our heads. Lemon. Orange. Crimson. Saffron. Copper.
"Ocher," announced her dark-haired cousin triumphantly, as she placed two cardboard snack trays full of chips and sandwiches down on the dining table.
"Look at the lovely shades! It's just closed in completely, like we're going through a tunnel of leaves." Anne Giles was the blond. She was from Sydney. She and her cousin, Maureen Cummings of Australia's Gold Coast, were traveling via New York from Alabama to Montreal. From there, they'd continue on to Toronto before flying back to Australia.
"We'd miss all this scenery on the plane," said Anne. "And the hospitality of the crew is wonderful. It's really something to be appreciated. I wish we were taking this train back."
"We took the train rather than the plane specifically to view the autumn leaves," added Maureen.
So had a lot of passengers.
"Ladies and gentlemen," had come the announcement as the northbound Adirondack slid out of Manhattan's Penn Station early that morning. "Today's train is sold-out and we will need all seats. Please make all seats available."
Autumn in the Hudson Valley.
The train was packed, full of excited sightseers with cameras on standby. I'd grabbed a seat on the west side of the train, the side by the river. The Adirondack is famous for its scenic route through the Hudson Valley and alongside the Adirondacks mountains year-round. There are snowy landscapes to behold in winter, and lush green forests to view in spring and summer. But in September and October, Amtrak provides the most unique, romantic way to leaf-peep.
We left the rush-hour buzz of Penn Station behind as we rose out of the cut—a narrow stone canyon gouged out of Manhattan's bedrock base—to keep pace with the traffic on the West Side Highway.
"When does it get pretty?" I asked the conductor.
"It's pretty all along. But you're on the best side for the Hudson Valley."
Then, without warning, the sun vanished. We'd zipped back into the cut, and were surrounded by a bedrock so unique that it had earned its own name—Manhattan schist. Carved out of the schist are manmade valleys and cramped railroad tunnels, the circulatory system below the city streets. Amtrak cannot bring its largest passenger cars or panorama cars into Manhattan. They simply won't fit.
In and out of the bedrock we zipped, past graffiti-covered walls, barreling out of Midtown as the commuter trains sped south, carrying workers to their desk jobs at the same pace that the Adirondack was whisking me to Canada. I felt like a naughty child, playing hooky instead of going to school.
We raced the automobiles up to the George Washington Bridge, where men were fishing, casting their lines into the Hudson in the morning light.
Soon the skyscrapers of Manhattan receded. The Adirondack hugged the Hudson's shore. I anxiously scanned the New Jersey Palisades, visible across the Hudson River, for a first glimpse of autumn. But the bluffs were still green, displaying only a few vibrant specks of colored foliage. A half-hour in, we passed under the Tappan-Zee Bridge and the specks turned to splashes of red against the green. The steep cliffs of the Palisades had transformed into rolling hills.
Mid-morning, Hudson Valley
I'd left my comfy padded seat and moved to the caf car early so that I could chat with other passengers and make use of the tall picture windows. At first, there was silence aside from people ordering coffee and breakfast sandwiches. Then, as the Adirondack moved on and the leaves transformed, the silence was broken by oooh and ahhh as dramatic hues burst forth, like a fireworks display. I eavesdropped on the other passengers, listening to accents from Italy, Germany, Australia, and North America.
"Are we intruding?" A German couple addressed a young female office worker, her laptop plugged into the power outlet next to the dining table.
"Of course not." The couple offered her snacks. Twice. She declined, smiled, and went back to her work.
There's a spirit of camaraderie on the train, and it increases along with the distance from the city. It's a kind not encountered on planes or buses, where there's no room to move. On a plane or bus, other passengers are viewed as competition for that valuable resource—personal space.
Bannerman Castle sits just offshore.
On the train, conversations begin easily and often don't involve hellos or goodbyes.
"Look, a castle!" And then the speaker casually wandered away, through the whooshing sliding doors at the end of the carriage.
The castle in question was Bannerman Castle, which sits on a seven-acre island just offshore, shortly after passing fortress-like West Point on the far bank. This hundred-year-old castle is not the summer home of some British Earl, nor was it a monument built by some lovelorn architect. It was a warehouse for a munitions dealer.
An hour later, after we'd passed Albany and left the gentile charm of the Hudson Valley behind, it no longer mattered which side I sat on. New York's vibrant autumn foliage was in full bloom. The train had entered a brilliant tunnel of psychedelia, dense twin embankments of deciduous forest broken up by picturesque villages, railroad crossings, and placid wetlands. From Saratoga Springs to the Canadian border, the vistas dazzled with their blazing hues.
Golden. Magenta. Red. Red-brown. Lime. Blond. Rust. I picked out more colors as we continued along, once again meeting the Hudson River, where it fed into the Champlain Canal, a remnant of a time before railroads.
"Do you have a favorite part of this journey?" I asked Deborah Putnam Thomas, a frequent rider who was traveling between Philadelphia and Vermont.
"I like it all equally. It's stunning along Lake Champlain but also beautiful along the Hudson. I could've ridden the train into Burlington but chose to come this way for the autumn scenery," she explained.
Winding around the Adirondacks.
Bo Knepp, a Vermont resident sitting in the seat in front of Deborah added that he too could have ridden out of Vermont.
"I could have taken the train out of Rutland but my daughter and her husband—they live in Hoboken—said 'You've got to take the Adirondack.' They've ridden it both ways. The scenery is beautiful. I used to drive but there's nowhere to park in Hoboken. And forget the plane to LaGuardia. It takes forever to get to Hoboken from the airport. This way I arrive in Penn Station, walk one block, then get on the PATH [commuter] train."
"By the time you get to the airport and deal with baggage, then do the same on the other end, you might as well take the train," added Deborah.
Value is another reason the ten-hour journey between New York City and Montreal often runs full. The round-trip train journey is more than a hundred dollars cheaper than the most inexpensive published airplane fare.
Afternoon, Adirondacks
About four-and-a-half hours into the journey, we crossed the southeastern boundary of Adirondack Park, the largest United States park outside Alaska. Amtrak skirts the eastern edge of the 6-million protected acres for two hours, until just south of Plattsburgh. Mile after mile of mountain, meadow, and shore slid by outside my window. To my left was forest, ablaze with a vibrant foliage blanket that sat astride a tremendous rocky base. To the right was vast Lake Champlain—the USA's sixth largest natural, freshwater lake. I scanned the waters for Champ, the local version of the Loch Ness monster, to see if he was leaf-peeping too. But all I could spot was the yellow, red, and green-hued distant shore of Vermont.
Perhaps we were more likely to see one of 200-400 rare Adirondack moose than to catch a glimpse of something resembling a dinosaur. My mind drifted and my chin dropped a bit.
"You're not sleeping through the best part, are you?" conductor James Kaufman had caught me wavering. I had, after all, been staring eagerly out the window for five hours.
I adamantly shook my head no. Wouldn't dream of it.
"That's the foothills of the Adirondack mountains." He pointed to the slopes to our west.
"From here to Westport, we follow the natural curve of the lake, as the mountains rise just inland. That's why we go so slowly."
North along the Hudson River.
We covered the miles leisurely, giving passengers the chance to gaze at the small towns along the way. Adirondack Park is the size of neighboring Vermont, and encompasses private areas as well as public lands. Picturesque villages—the daily train their only public transport—dotted the landscape, occasionally interrupting the blanket of leaves with freestanding homes and winding roads. Trains meander through backyards, centers of towns, and along routes usually ignored in favor of efficient, direct highway travel. Rail travel gives passengers a sense of nostalgia and romance, the chance to leisurely take in the scenery from a vantage point unique in long-distance travel.
"It's so beautiful. We're from British Columbia and we have the same thing there, of course, but not as much red in our leaves," explained Kathy Plato, as she held her camera at the ready.
Her traveling companion, Ray Brendeland, agreed. "We didn't even think of the scenery when we booked the trip. I wanted to go to New York City and Kathy wanted to go to Montreal. So here's our compromise. The scenery is a great bonus."
Shortly before Plattsburgh, bare trees were sighted more frequently, replacing the frequent colorful bursts with naked branches. The day was graying, the scenery turning bleak as the season approached winter and we approached Canada.
"Smoke stop at Plattsburgh!" The conductor walked through the car. "Step off here if you want a smoke or an education." He was referring to the State University of New York located at Plattsburgh. The passengers giggled. A few made beelines for the exits, though from their fevered looks and the cigarettes in their hands, they seemed unlikely to be in pursuit of a B.A.
What a character, I thought. The conductor came from a family of railroad workers. He'd been a conductor for over thirty years.
The border was flat and overcast, while the wind was bending the foliage, grass, and trees. The bleakness seemed appropriate for a frontier, and stood in sharp contrast to the dazzling miles to the south, a journey so visually stunning that in 2000, National Geographic Traveler magazine named the Adirondack one of the world's ten best rail trips.
I thought back to what Anne from Sydney had said outside Saratoga Springs.
"Instead of transportation, riding the Adirondack is an experience."