Autumn in the High Country
and my third trip to Mt. Evans
In the High Country of the Rockies, autumn follows spring: there is no summer there. One week, the grass is green; the next, it’s brown.
The road to the top of Mt. Evans is only open from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend: about three months and change. That’s all you get. And most years, they have to plow the snow to get it open on Memorial Day.
So we made our third trip to the top of Mt. Evans on Labor Day weekend, where it is still summer in lower elevations, to find that autumn had arrived up there.
And looking south from the mountain towards South Park, you can see exactly where the line is between spring (green vegetation) and fall (brown):
This trip was the first time I took the trail from the parking lot to the very top of Mt. Evans. Here’s a panoramic looking westward from the top. You can see the edge of South Park at the left edge of the photo. The right edge looks northwest.
Turning to the right a little bit, we look more or less north:
The left edge of the 2nd picture is the same area as the right edge of the first picture. Both are panoramas that were stitched together from several photos. In the top right corner of the 2nd photo, you can see a forest fire that was burning near Boulder, Colorado that day.
The animals were all preparing for winter, which at that elevation isn’t that far away. Here’s a cute little pika that I’ll talk about below the photo.
Pikas are one of the cutest animals out there. No, they are not “rats with furry tails:” biologists say that they are actually related to rabbits. This little guy (girl) was very busy that day getting bunches of leaves in its mouth and carrying them into its den. Gotta have food when you wake up from hibernation, you know. It was so cute to watch. I didn’t get a photo of that; this is the only one of several I shot that is in focus.
And we had the mountain goats:
I think that the mountain goats are always ready for winter.
Further down, fall came about a week later. The aspens turn around the third week in September (depending on elevation), and are a beauty:
You have seen shots from this location in earlier posts. The two pointy mountains at top-center-left are Grays Peak and Torreys Peak.
Aspen season in the high country is very short. Most years, within a week of the aspens turning, there’s a big windstorm that strips all of the trees of their fabulous golden foliage. You have to get out there with your camera.
If you’re willing to travel a little bit, you can extend that season a little bit. They turn first at the higher elevations, and then work their way down lower. Here’s a shot taken near Montezuma, Colorado a few days after the above photos:
And another one, a little farther down this river:
Ah, yes. Cool, crisp air. Cold mountain streams, just days away from becoming ice. Life just doesn’t get any better. Makes you want to pop open a can of Coors.
That's the Snake River? The same one that flows through Idaho and beyond? It would make sense that it's so small at this point. What a perspective. Nice story about the aspens and critters.