EYDER PERALTA, HOST:
Spring is busting out all over in the northern hemisphere. Here in Mexico City, the jacarandas are in their full purple splendor. Farther north in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, early spring is when different seasons mix and sometimes collide. Here's NPR's Brian Mann and North Country Public Radio's David Sommerstein with an audio postcard that proves it.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS CRUNCHING)
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: We set off mid-morning through a forest glowing with spring sun.
DAVID SOMMERSTEIN, BYLINE: It is an insanely beautiful day - 65 degrees. Sunny. What could be better?
MANN: David and I have been hiking together in these mountains in northern New York for a quarter century. Today, he's leaning into the promise that winter is done.
SOMMERSTEIN: I'm wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and that's it. And I do have a Buffalo Bills little beanie wool hat.
MANN: I was going to make you mention the Buffalo Bills hat.
SOMMERSTEIN: Got to - go Bills.
MANN: Go Bills. Yeah.
We trek on, climbing up winding trails that already smell warm of pine and trail dust. We rock hop across a stream gurgling with snowmelt.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER FLOWING)
MANN: Spring means different things in different places. Here in the North, it means a lifting of darkness and cold that sometimes feel endless.
SOMMERSTEIN: No matter how much you love winter, when you get these first days of warmth and being able to have your skin exposed to the air and not feel totally bitten, it's exhilarating.
MANN: It's warm enough. We sweat as we climb. We pass a stand of ferns, already luscious green, but there's also a fierce wind at times, especially when we're climbing on open rock.
(SOUNDBITE OF WIND WOOSHING)
SOMMERSTEIN: As we keep on going up, this ridge is just craggy and rocky and beautiful.
MANN: Below us, the forest moves like water as currents of wind sweep the valley.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS CRUNCHING)
MANN: We climb on. Going high enough, the patches of snow turn into deep drifts.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS CRUNCHING)
SOMMERSTEIN: So we switched to snowshoes, which didn't feel like it at all when we were at the trailhead. But that's the thing about spring hiking and climbing is that you'll go through multiple seasons in one hike.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS CRUNCHING)
MANN: This is one of those moments where I'm getting sunburned, walking on snow, kind of everything at once in spring.
We reach a big shelf of rock, sheltered a bit from the wind, where we can catch our breath and eat a picnic.
SOMMERSTEIN: I fell up to my back in snow, so there is at least three feet.
MANN: As we dig into cheese sandwiches and hummus and big wedges of chocolate, I asked David if he's impatient with this mix of seasons, the sun and summery smells of sweat and dust, but also this mountain snow that hangs on.
SOMMERSTEIN: You're seeing the Earth change in real time, and it's really something special that you become a part of when you go on a hike like this. We're still kind of halfway in between.
MANN: As we eat, we watch the wind tumble clouds over the peaks. A moment later, it's sunny again. Full summer will come soon enough. For now, this changeable season feels exactly right.
With David Sommerstein, I'm Brian Mann, NPR News, in New York's Adirondack Mountains.
(SOUNDBITE OF KIERNAN TOLLEFSON'S "IF WE DON'T WAKE UP") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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