While many of us were focused on the rare northern lights visible from New Haven last night, I was thinking about the light show I got one fall at Millers Pond. Perched on the western ridge like a ball that wouldn’t bounce, the sun blasted the far bank’s already blazing leaves, which billowed up from the ground like frozen explosions. The shadow of the horizon then climbed the leafy plumes, dousing their fire with a darkness that also crept across the water.
I was thinking about that evening as a matter of planning a return visit—because, without a plan, it’s all too easy this time of year to get wrapped up in our lives and miss both the forest and the trees. According to the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection’s Fall Foliage Report, peak leaf-peeping season has already hit the northern corners of the state, with New Haven’s predicted to arrive around the end of the month. Millers Pond, located in Durham about 35 minutes northeast of the city, is expected to peak sometime between, probably within the next two weeks.
See you there?
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
