A full moon rises over a snowfield in rural Vermont, where the endless mounds of snow may seem chaste or corpse-like, funereal or energizing, depending on one's point of view. Vermonters call themselves "woodchucks" because they've learned to hibernate under the weight of it instead of fighting from primacy, as newcomers do.

(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Vermont: Suite of Seasons," September 1998, National Geographic magazine)