"Sweater weather" is fast approaching, but unlike so many of L. L. Bean's best customers, I do not use the occasion to coo and purr and make cocoa and cute scrunchy faces. (Nor it seems, am I alone in my sober take on knit tops.) Winter has always been my least favorite season, while I have always relished summer. Yet, having grown up in Connecticut, I'm also a sucker for exactly this time of year—early fall, when days are still warm, nights are crisp and cool, and trees are dolled up in their fancy party outfits for a short but magical two weeks. Colored leaves and long streaky shadows at 4 PM? Bring 'em on. Debate all you like, but in the end, you must admit that New England kicks major autumn a**.

I'm biased of course. I can't help it. To hear people back east gush about fall almost makes you want to cover youngsters' ears against such passionate prose: a pumpkin patch's best specimens are said to be swollen with sugar; orchards brim with apples so ripe you'd think they leap willingly into the cider mills to unburden themselves of their prodigious juice. Breathlessly, Northeastern fall foliage fans describe their leafy objects of affection as being "ablaze" in fiery reds and oranges.

Living on the opposite coast, in a city known not for multi-hued maples, but for dry grassy hills that briefly turn green once a year, is it any wonder that I'm hard up for such flamboyant natural displays?

October brings San Francisco some of its warmest days all year—warmer even than all summer—and perfectly suited to outdoor adventures. After spending all morning researching online, I decided to head north to my nearest foliage option, Baltimore Canyon, in lush Marin County. Here, on the less-visited side of Mount Tam, maple trees reportedly grow aplenty in the canyon's basin, along with oak and other deciduous trees. Allegedly, they would all be doing the changing-colors thing when I arrived. I planned to get a good look (not to mention fresh air and exercise) by descending the well-marked Dawn Falls Trail about a mile each way.

I hit the road, traveling alone, hoping to soon be dazzled by some reasonable facsimile of New England-caliber turning leaves. I reached the trailhead quite late—nearly 4:30 PM, but the sky was still bright, my shadow was not yet long, and a few locals with their dogs lead the way. In I went, down a rather steep but well-groomed trail that almost instantly became dark. I walked alongside the dry streambed and between several young coast redwoods. (The older, bigger ones were used up a century ago to build San Francisco's Victorians.)

Before long, I popped out into a better-lit area with trees unlike those I'd seen on my prior hikes (i.e. not redwoods). Madrones have trunks that are long and elegant, almost serpentine, and the bright, silky moss covering them looked almost like ballerinas' legwarmers. One large upended trunk of unidentifiable species was charred, and recalled something out of Tim Burton's imagination. It seemed apropos, given the proximity of Halloween. My favorite moss-covered thing, however, I called Oscar, after the Sesame Street character. It literally looked as if the notorious grouch had finally gotten his karmic come-uppance, through reincarnation as his own trash can, actually a large hollow stump.

Oh, and what of the maples and the spectacular fall display? Meh. They were there, but I was either too early or too late this month, or the season had been too warm, or too wet. There were many green leaves still on the trees, and many dead fallen brown ones, and just a few brilliant yellow ones. And I'm OK with that. In all my years of seeing shows, this wasn't the first one to disappoint but still surprise in other ways.

Could it be that you're not supposed to find a tiny corner of New England north of San Francisco? Maybe I'll answer that for you next October.