A hillside of trees provides a brightly-colored backdrop for a Vermont barn. Amid ancient mountains gentled by time, farm families work the same tilted acres their ancestors did.

This is the foliage season, nature's last hurrah before winter, when the state's lush cover of deciduous trees turns in its flashiest performance.

(Text adapted from "Leaves of Autumn: A Vermont Sampler," Autumn 1984, National Geographic Traveler magazine)

(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Vermont: Suite of Seasons," September 1998, National Geographic magazine)