Backpacker

20 05.2017PHOTO BY TK20 10.2017play listPHOTO BY IAN SHIVE / TANDEMSTOCK.COM``````If it’s fall color you seek, Maine’s North Woods are your quarry. Here, in the Moosehead Lake region,red-and-yellow hardwoods thread between evergreens and blue channels all the way to the graymassifs of Baxter State Park. There’s no shortage of great hiking in all that color (Moxie Falls, LittleMoose Mountain, Katahdin, and Little Wilson Falls are headliners), so don’t feel pinned down. True,“this far north, it doesn’t matter where you end up,” says photographer Ian Shive, who snappedthis image from a fixed-wing craft over the southwestern corner of 75,000-acre Moosehead Lake.“In autumn, you’re guaranteed crisp, cold mornings where fog lingers on lakes and waterfowl swimsilently by.” Feeling inspired but tied to land? Try the 4-mile out-and-back up 2,303-foot IndianMountain (just right, out of the frame) for a similar vantage. But move fast: Foliage here peaks early,usually the fourth week of September or first week of October. Contact mooseheadlake.org``````Think big.16 NORTH WOODS, MAINE