Category: nature

The Millcreek upper canyon is about to close for the winter and this weekend is supposed to be cold, so we did a quick trip last night to see what we could see. That included some naked trees and an epic sign:

The aspens higher up are losing their gold leaves but the maples this year are so brilliant. We had sun and blue skies to really show off that orange:

I got a day off Friday to do volunteer work (with this place). My company gives you the whole day, even if the volunteering isn’t eight hours, so we had the afternoon free and we went up a different canyon to see the aspens. They didn’t disappoint!

I think it’s a physical impossibility to escape quoting Robert Frost in the fall in an aspen grove: “Nothing gold can stay.”

The trees in the canyon are starting to change and those mountain ash berries were astonishing in their orange-ness. I guess I can’t pretend it’s still summer, even though it’s still sunny.

I’m trying to get as much out of the last of summer as I can–including continuing to call it “summer,” even though there are mushrooms and golden grasses and afternoon clouds and all the signs of coming fall.

I took an extra day of the long weekend to line up with Doc’s day off and we went to the Uinta mountains, to explore the area around Crystal Lake. We were planning on a loop but ended up doing an out-and-back (the Lakes Country trail) and it did indeed deliver on the lakes:

Everything is still green but it was 48 degrees when we started and the light just looks like fall. I guess it comes faster at 10,000 feet.

I’m not saying the F[all]-word until it’s September but…. things are starting to look awfully gold-and-orange up the canyon.

I don’t know what those last orange berries are but they were certainly bright and tempting (heheheh).

Doc had his last free Friday afternoon before going back to work full time so I logged on early and left at 3:00, so we could get a golden afternoon up Millcreek.

We didn’t really hike, just visited my favorite stretch of stream, the one that always makes me think of Schubert or The Wind in the Willows. That August light is really something.

It was hot and cloudy in the valley yesterday, which meant it was probably raining in the canyon, which meant we did a quick before-dinner trip to the top of Millcreek and got to enjoy damp 68-degree temps and the start of the wildflowers: