FALL COMES EARLY to Colorado’s high country, often in August, occasionally even at August’s start. While lower-altitude locations down in the foothills might still be experiencing mid-summer heat, remaining green and lush and vibrant with life, the alpine tundra can already see chlorophyll fading and russet hues spreading…
This year I noticed the first hint of Fall on August 3rd – an impressive but not unusually early start to the new season. Undoubtedly, a dry July contributed to it, with alpine vegetation struggling to flourish without the life-giving moisture it needs. And the temperature played a part too – it was persistently cooler than normal, especially overnight. The all-round ambiance sensed at August’s start was markedly altered from July’s. It was muted. Somehow more melancholy. The cumulative ‘message’ from too many contributing factors to individually identify was clear: Fall has begun.
Rather than posting a long written blog to chronicle this year’s unfolding of autumn I thought I’d add a photo essay instead, a visual story of change. Change, of course, is inevitable, and not all change is good. But some change leads to great beauty and that’s the kind of change I like to see – and like to celebrate. Hopefully, some solace can be found in this photographic celebration, along with reassurance from this reminder that change goes both ways – that ‘summer’ will always return.
Thank you for joining me.
Even there at the start of August tundra vegetation was transitioning from actively alive to dormant.
August 4th arrived with a hard frost. Thirty-Fahrenheit was nothing compared with the cold to come, but the queen’s crown undoubtedly ‘felt’ it within its cells. Other wildflowers had already been impacted and had already died back.
This mid-August ‘leave-no-trace’ camp had the mood of October.
Up on the high tundra above 12,500 feet alpine avens had been transformed. Their yellow flowers had vanished. Their green foliage was now bright scarlet. Mid August indeed!!!
At September’s start summer warmth made a fight of it, but the Fallish hues told another story.
Bighorn rams above camp. A wild place without wild companions has been called ‘mere scenery’. We are lucky in Colorado: we don’t only have scenery!
By September’s second week, summer was only a memory. Storms swept through, along with the first high-altitude snows.
Down in the forests all was damp. The scents were emotion-stirring, mood-lifting… and just all-round fantastic!
A view back down the valley into the passing storm. This was one of those visits where listening to the weather forecast would have been a mistake. ‘Heavy rain all day, all night, and all morning’ was the prediction. It should have kept me home. But I suspected (from experience) that it wouldn’t be as continuous as the forecaster said.
Sure enough, the storms cleared, although towering thunderclouds hinted that it was still ‘weathering’ down in the foothills.
In camp, a snowshoe hare came to visit. Just look at those massive feet, soon to be put to good use upon deep soft snow. But if it would only keep still for a second!
Ah, thank you!
September 14th dawned cold: thirty Fahrenheit and windy. A touch of ice on the tent. Coffee in the mug. Bright sunshine. Cloud shadows sweeping over the mountains. The patch of krummholz provided wonderful shelter.
Lower down the valley, aspen groves were already nearing peak color (or colour for my British readers!) weeks ahead of schedule.
Backlit by the sun, with dark mountains and clouds beyond them, the aspen positively GLOWED!
It was one of the reddest aspen groves I’ve ever found – hard to reach off-trail, but worth it!
By the next visit I found a world of golden light. But the picture is only a small part of the story. Picture, too, the movement of the leaves – dancing in the slightest of breezes, and the rustling of them – a thousand secrets being whispered, and the tannin-laden scents filling lungs to the brim. A photo will NEVER do the transformative magic of this season justice. It’s not only the landscape that finds itself transformed.
Through the aspen.
Often, individual aspen within a single grove will all display the same color – all yellow, all orange, etc – a sign that individual aspen are really one tree connected below ground by a shared root. But this bright pocket of color possibly told a different story.
Deep in the aspen woods, a mythical realm.
That evening there was something beguiling to the light…
…ironically, there was a warmth to it that other warmer times of year can’t match!
A good time of year for reflecting…
A special camp.
The colors and textures of autumn.
I cherish every moment in the mountains and forests, and every single moment in nature no matter the location, season or conditions. But some moments truly are more… well, ‘intense’ than other moments, more fully immersive, more effective at pulling us out of ‘the cage of self’. Autumn at its best is the entire nature experience at its best. It reaches a part of us words cannot.
By October 12th, snow was sticking on the tops. But fall remained, coloring the evening with burnished light.
Sunset, reflected in water soon to be ice.
By dawn the pond was frozen. And soon snow began.
Fall is done, winter is here!
But what a wonder-filled season Fall was!
And please remember, if you visit these places visit gently so that others can have the same experience you did. If the next visitor can tell you were there you’re not visiting gently enough Thank you for reading… and for understanding.