I know there are many of you who live in areas where the trees have riots of colors - reds, yellows, orange, green, brown, even purple. Well, Colorado does have a similar variety, but we tend to focus on two colors for our healthy tree colors in the fall - green (pine trees) and yellow gold (aspen and their lowland cousins, the cottonwoods). These last few years, we've had an increasing amount of rust-brown as the beetles kill more and more of the pine forests but today, we're here to celebrate our fall colors and fall season.
Come on over the cog railway tracks to join me with some of my favorite photos.
My wife and I go up to Estes Park on the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park nearly every October. A childhood friend lets me stay at his rental house or rental chalet if nobody else is using it (he rents it out since he doesn't live there anymore) and usually one or the other is available the second week of October when the end of season sidewalk sale is on in town. My wife loves the bargains and friends who come with us partake in "Shot and Shop, Shot and Shop" as they go up one side of the main street and down the other, moving between bars and all the sidewalk (and interior) sales. Estes has recovered somewhat from the major flooding of two years ago, but some shops never were able to reopen.
Here are some cottonwood colors in downtown Estes, with pines in the back:
Here are pictures within Rocky Mountain National Park itself (btw, the park turned 100 years old this year):
Elk, down in the meadows for the rut (otherwise known as mating, er bugling, season)
All the looky-loos who come to see the elk, er, mate, and hear them bugling. The sound sometimes seems to me a little like humpback whales, for those who've never heard that bugling/whistling. It's primal when it carries across meadows and through woods as the sun sinks behind the mountains. I hope I get into the park to hear this and not get turned away at the entrance by a Republican shutdown. Maybe I should bring a sign and spend a couple hours at the gate reminding people just why they can't get in to their park.
The first snows of the season are falling in September, covering the peaks and reminding us the snow is headed for the lowlands within mere weeks.
South of Estes Park in Allenspark is the "Chapel on the Rocks" below Mount Meeker. This church and the Retreat which used to be next to it are owned by the Catholic diocese of Denver. When Pope, now Saint John Paul II visited Denver in 1993, he came here and blessed the church. In 2011 a fire destroyed most of the retreat and in the floods of 2013, some of Mt. Meeker was washed down and around the base of this, but fortunately did not damage the church itself. My wife married me in this church, one night after midnight when we stopped by, but I didn't marry her in my own church until about two years later. This is a very pretty little church, though it has had some hard times lately.
On the way southwest of Pueblo as we headed towards Canyon City on a different trip, there's one of my favorite places in Colorado - Bishop's Castle. Created by a libertarian, he lets people climb all over his creation at their own risk. I may share more photos in an upcoming diary; I'm including this from the very top of one of the spires to show you sprinklings of yellow aspen among the green pines and fir trees.
At Canyon City we enjoyed a wine festival at the Abbey winery and then our route back towards Denver wound through the hills of the Gold Belt Scenic Byway Tour.
Doesn't everyone have several of these photos, lying on a bed of leaves and grasses looking up to the crystal clear sky through fall colors?
Be it ever so humble, however, there's no place like home. This is my backyard.
Somewhere I learned you can't go wrong ending a photo show with a sunset, especially over mountains. Also from my backyard.
This coming Saturday, September 26th, five of us (at least) will be headed up Pikes Peak on the Cog Railway. The temperature should be lovely - in the 70's at the bottom, up at the top it's likely to be in the 40's. It has snowed a couple of times already up there, but I doubt we'll see much snow on our trip. It's been rather warm and dry since those snowfalls. As we go up and down, we'll be traveling the equivalent of about 800 miles north (if memory serves me) and we'll be traveling through many life zones. We hope to see charismatic megafauna (large, cute beasts like mountain goats and bighorn sheep, maybe a bear, maybe elk or deer, maybe just birds). Whatever we do see, however, will be chronicled in a diary within a day or so of our return to civilization.
What are your plans for the coming week, month, fall season, or just for your life in general? What would you like to talk about? The floor is open...