Theresa · Mather

We took a drive this afternoon up the mountain. Although the autumn color hasn't reached down to 6000 feet altitude in our town, there's plenty of it higher up. The highest peaks in the area hit around 11,000 feet.
This is the road up the mountain you can see from my front window.

Another view from the road up Cedar Mountain, looking toward the top where the altitude is 8700 feet.


This type of lovely plant is my nemesis each autumn. It's called rabbit brush, it's everywhere, and it makes clouds of pretty yellow pollen that make my eyes water continuously when it blooms in fall. Sure is pretty though.


Here I am walking at the top of a lava cliff up on the plateau at the top of the mountains. The peaks are all very high in altitude, but the effect at the top is rolling hills punctuated by evidence of volcanic eruptions. In the summer, ranchers graze sheep and cattle in the rolling hills er...mountaintops, taking them down the mountain later in fall to winter at lower altitudes. We saw several stags and lots of mountain bluebirds today up here.

The prevailing regional color once autumn sets in is golden yellow because of the aspens and cottonwoods and rabbit brush.

These pictures show the early colors. The gambel oaks and many of the aspens haven't even started to change yet. Barring a storm blowing in at the wrong time and taking down the leaves, I hope to make several more trips to this and other local areas to see lots of autumn color before everything turns grey for the winter, which I'm totally not ready for. It's not going to be long now till my own deciduous trees start to turn.