Wild Wolf Pond

Photographers refer to the “magic hour,” when light flowing through a landscape is distinctly golden, something that usually happens at the beginning and end of a clear day. During our trek into Wolf Pond last fall under a sapphire sky, our time on the trail had that remarkable quality, from our late-morning start to mid-afternoon departure.

The reason, I think, is the old-growth forest without the scruffy, witchhobble-choked understory typical of logged woodlands in the Adirondacks. The yellow birch, balm of Gilead,