EDITOR'S LETTER

I finally made it to Quechee Gorge. A place that's been rattling around in my head for many years, like the lyrics to Brand New Key. It was one of the scheduled stops on a threeweek family trip to Vermont, Quebec and the Adirondacks. I'd been to Vermont a few times before, but I somehow missed the prominent gorge. What's worse, I'd never even heard of it. Not until the fall of 2013. The introduction came in response to something I'd written on the cover of our October issue: “Autumn in Arizona and Why It's Better Here Than It Is in Vermont.” Like John Lennon's offhand comment about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus, my words incurred the wrath of an otherwise peaceful people. Blasphemy! How dare you? Arizona? Really? Are you out of your mind? That was the consensus. And the outrage wasn't limited to our subscribers. Frenzied loyalists from all over New England came after me.Among the many calls was a call from the governor's office in Montpelier. I think that's what got the attention of the Asso-ciated Press. After that, the story went viral. Even Time magazine weighed in: “It's a leaf-peeping smackdown. A magazine promoting tourism in Arizona (yes, Arizona) is boasting that its foliage season is better than Vermont's.” The best response, though, came from my colleagues at Vermont Life, a wonderful magazine that now rests in peace. They sent me a mocked-up cover featuring one of their state's scenic wonders. The cover line read: “Gorges in Vermont and Why Quechee Gorge Is Grander Than the Grand Canyon.” It was a brilliant tongue-in-cheek comeback to a feud that never really was.

Turns out, Quechee Gorge is spectacular. It's 165 feet deep, it's nourished by the Ottauquechee River and it's surrounded by an expansive forest of hardwoods, a backdrop from the wildest dreams of Robert Frost. The trees in that forest — sugar maples, white ash, red oaks, yellow birch — are what make autumn in New England so special. For a few weeks, anyway. Until winter sets in.Here in Arizona, autumn is less flamboyant, but it's more determined — thus the cover line. It unfolds for about four months, beginning on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in September and ending as late as January in the riparian areas of the Sonoran Desert. There are dramatic differences in our state's respective ecosystems, but in either place — in any place, really — the allure of autumn is universal.

“That's one season I think I could do year-round,” says writer Craig Childs, “except it wouldn't work. The appeal is the way autumn stands at the edge of change, balancing for just a moment.” My friend Annie likes autumn, too. She's the gifted editor of Adirondack Life, another wonderful magazine. I haven't asked her, but I think she'd trade a few months of winter for a few more months of autumn. It's her favorite time of year. “For me,” she says, “it feels like a beginning, like the start of something. It's an opportunity to press the reset button. Most people would say that about spring, but spring makes me think of mud and missed opportunity. All those things I didn't accomplish in winter.” There's a psychological term for what she's referring to. It's called a temporal landmark. Birthdays, New Year's Day, the arrival of autumn... they're all temporal landmarks that can signal new beginnings and shift our way of thinking, says Eva Krockow, Ph.D., a research psychologist at the University of Leicester. “In many cases, they offer a motivational push for making life changes previously thought impossible.” But the allure of autumn is more than just a fresh start. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Kathryn Lively, a Dartmouth professor, explains that we're conditioned to think of fall as a time to get comfortable. A time to cozy up to a roaring fire, break out the boots and sweaters, and trade in the couscous and kale salad for butternut squash and shepherd's pie. It's an exciting time, too, she says. We're conditioned, early on, to associate autumn with the excitement of going back to school — new clothes, old friends. And the excitement of football, hayrides and Halloween.

So many of my best memories are linked to Halloween: Carving pumpkins with my brothers in the backyard of our boyhood home. Poring over costumes in the Sears catalog, like Edith Head on the set of Roman Holiday. Scarecrows, Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the anticipation of strangers throwing candy at us, the way old ladies feed pigeons in the park.

Every year, even if it was snowing — that happened sometimes in our small northern town we'd come home with a pillowcase full of Snickers, Bottle Caps and Butterfingers. It would be late at night, with frost already forming on the pumpkins. As we'd stumble onto the front porch, the crisp October air would smell like autumn. Some combination of wood smoke, cornstalks and the musky redolence of decomposition — fallen oak and maple leaves settling in for a long winter's nap.

For me, that's the allure of the season. L'arôme de l'automne. The aroma of autumn. A few years ago, while hiking on the North Rim with some friends, I asked which of their senses they'd rather lose. There was no consensus, because it's an impossible question to answer. How do you choose between the song of a nightingale and the fragrance of fresh-baked bread? Or the touch of goose down and the silhouette of a saguaro at sunset? You could argue that our sense of smell is the least important, but I'd have a hard time hiking the West Fork of Oak Creek without it. Especially now. In October.

The song says that Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. I'll look forward to that, too, but there's nothing better than autumn in Arizona. Like Quechee Gorge, it's spectacular.