Theresa · Mather

The North Rim of the Grand Canyon is much closer to us than the more frequently visited South Rim, so it's where we go most often. It's higher than the South Rim, and heavily forested. The lodge closes for the year on October 16 although the park stays open until the snow seals it in for the winter, or November 30, whichever comes first. We decided to get a final visit in before the lodge closes.
At this time of year, we were expecting autumn color. We never expected to see the elusive park buffalo, which used to keep to the back country, yet there some were right past the park gates. Judging by the number of "chips", they come to this field frequently.

We saw lots of animals, including about 40 wild turkeys, grouse, deer and a rare kaibab squirrel, which is a large charcoal grey squirrel with a black belly and white tail.The regional deer population is teeming- we saw tons of them all the way back from the park.
( More pictures, clicky here )

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.