Jeff “Foliage” Folger
Yes, this page is about Foliage… Jeff Foliage… so you can read about my journey through the foliage.
Each year has been a learning experience for me and within a few years, people were asking me, where to go. My proudest moment was when Yankee Magazine asked me to be their first blogger and tell everyone where I was finding peak fall foliage in my travels or more importantly NOT finding it.
Now 55 years since I first started taking pictures and 30,000+ miles of chasing peak color and it doesn’t fail, someone will mention Peak fall color, and I still start thinking about the fall colors… 🙂
My Early Learning by Exploring New England
Toward my final years in the Air Force, I would take my vacation time between Sept and October. Since most of my family lived in New England, I would come home to Massachusetts or New Hampshire to visit and see the fall colors. I would only be home for a week or so and usually ended up being disappointed at not finding peak fall color during my New England travels.
I relied on my sister and Brother in law for direction and this worked out pretty well but mostly I just hit the road (without maps or even current reports of which there wasn’t much back then) I did say, I was green, right?
I retired in 2003 and as the summer progressed I started to think about the pending fall season. I bought a New Hampshire Gazetteer and started planning to visit NH and VT. When Sept arrived I would take off for places like Conway NH or White River Junction and wondered where the fall colors were… 🙂
I traveled around the countryside and I eventually found websites where I learned that I was heading out too early or not heading far enough north for these dates in Sept.
I learned how the color mostly flows north to south and higher elevation to lower [exception is swampy areas] where red maples or striped/swamp maples turn in late August to early Sept.
When I was young, I loved to get on the road at 3:30 in the morning and head north to the Franconia Notch in early Oct or take a ride into Peacham Vermont and explore the NEK… [North East Kingdom]
To me, it didn’t really matter since I was on the road somewhere and the freedom of that traveling allowed me to explore my desire to share New England’s fall foliage with you.
I’ve received emails from around the world and I’m happy to share to the best of my ability, what I have learned over the past 20+ years.
