After all the fresh snowfall in the Adirondacks this past week I was excited to get back into winter hiking even though it's not quite winter yet. I decided to take my mom up McKenzie Mountain, 3,861-foot peak in the 36,200 acre McKenzie Mountain Wilderness area. We took the Jackrabbit ski trail, 6.8 miles roundtrip and were surprised with over a foot of snow on the trail at some points. There was no view at the summit due to clouds, but the beautiful snow covered trail and trees, made the trek worthwhile.

Come forth, children of the shadows!/ Stake your claim on cool earth./ With artist's brush/ take the browning leaves and yellowed grass as your canvas./ With jeweler's precision/ cut diamonds of air/ and dust them on your latest creation./ Truly,/ yours is the most ephemeral of masterpieces,/ crumpled easily underfoot,/ gone by the noonday sun./ Yet each night is another chance to perform magic,/ to sugar-coat the ugliest of stumps with majesty./ Let silence be your working-song/ as your steady hand issues in the transition/ from nuts and berries/ to icicles and fat snowflakes./ But enjoy t

The Bayside Cemetary in Potsdam is not only a great place to mourn loved ones, but is also a beautiful park to walk around and enjoy nature and fall foliage whether it's on the trees or the ground! Or in this case conduct a geology lab on the rate of weathering for different headstones based on rock type.

It was a foggy, wet day to hike Scarface Mountain, but the trail was covered in a beautiful blanket of colorful leaves that had fallen off the trees and it was refreshing to be out in the comfortable 60 degree weather.

The Whitefish in this picture was not the species of fish I intended to catch on this particular day of fishing, but as temperatures grow cold some species seem to be more desperate than others. It struck this dry fly on the waters surface in a pool below the upper Allens Falls an area which is known to hold smallmouth bass, and various species of trout. Pertaining to the Salmonid family, this species migrates up stream to higher order streams in order to spawn.

A religious education class from the Unitarian Universalist church in Canton spent their Sunday morning exploring the natural world with a hike on the St. Lawrence University Kip Tract. We saw several different critters, talked about how to identify a few different trees, looked closely at fungi, and listened to the wind and the quiet as we got further from the road. This was a great way to experience the 7th principle of Unitarian Universalism, "Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part."

My great team of mammalogy students was out this weekend doing some live trapping to learn to capture and safely process wild mammals without harm to anyone. On this particular venture, we saw red and gray squirrels as well as deer mice and red-backed voles (one of my favorites). We were trying for the elusive porcupine, with no success. Still, it was a beautiful way to spend time outdoors on the weekend.

Last week, Thomas and I had the incredible opportunity to help the University of Cincinnati on a project about using leaf waxes in lake sediment as a proxy for climate. We got to spend two full days in the Adirondacks on beautiful little lakes hidden among less traveled parts of the park learning about this project and how to take lake cores. This research will create side projects for us to use as a senior thesis that will supplement their findings. The Adirondacks are HUGE and there are so many beautiful spots to explore.

Big Tupper Ski Area may have been closed to skiers, but that didn't prevent us from sledding! With just a quick hour drive from home, seasons changed from fall into a winter wonderland with over 2 feet of snow! We even built a snow man.