Glorious!

Saturday: Got to wondering what was going on autumn wise up in Mill Creek.
Grabbed my camera and drove the five miles up the canyon just before sunset.
You get to come along!
Click to make the pictures bigger...
And be sure to look for the pictures with a hidden heart!

One of my favorite sights to photograph from Porter Fork in Mill Creek Canyon.  The rock structure just looks so cool in fall and snow and spring time...oh and summer too.

If God were ever to make another season I would imagine it would look cool then too....

Mill Creek Canyon boasts just a handful of cabins, maybe four or five.
 I really like this one...so rustic yet just minutes away from the grocery store!

Bernie's favorite shot of the day.

This is the end of Mill Creek Canyon road.
Every year I try to get up the five miles to see the aspen in full glory.
Missed again this year.

 

 

 

About 4/5th of the way up the canyon there is one area where there is a tree whose leaves turn almost white in autumn.
The bark on their branches are almost purple colored!

Those leaves don't last long...I was glad I saw them again this year. 

 

There was a couple in the picnic area just a few yards from the road behind the trees.
They had a huge bonfire going and smoky smell was perfect with this scene. 

 

Usually  I try to avoid getting cars in my shots, but this shot with the cars helps define the size of the trees I was photographing. 

It was getting near dusk as I took the next few pictures.
I used the night/low light setting of my camera which leaves the shutter open a bit longer.
That made for some different looking shots...almost like if they were painted instead of photographed.

 

 

I call these Clown Leaves:  Each one has such a unique and fun color pattern that they make me laugh.
Almost like a child had drawn them and wanted to use all the crayon box colors on each leaf.
Laughing is such a good thing...

 

I thought of my friends who love to bike...wished they could take a ride up (or better yet, down) the canyon with me. 

 

 

Families have family pictures taken in autumn and in the flower fields of springtime.
This family was so cute...

 

Another family getting their annual picture taken just a few yards from the Porter Fork entrance.

The photographers were shooting at that golden hour when the light is just fading yet still giving great highlights to the scene.
Suddenly...and I do mean suddenly...strong winds shook the forest around us and the air around us was filled with confetti like colors as the leaves shook loose and began to fly.

Random scattered raindrops dappled my windshield and added a gloss to the entire area.
Magical moment!

There were almost no leaves on the road on my drive up the canyon, now the leaf strewn road was mirroring the colors overhead.

I ducked into a picnic area parking lot to enjoy the leaf shower.
A deer bounded over the road just a few feet away from me...I missed that shot darn it.
Those deer are really fast!

 

I had left the canyon and was turning onto our street when I saw this cloud which is dipping down over the hill into the canyon that I had just left.

It was dry at our house...the storm had apparently been a microburst just up in the canyon.
So that was late Saturday.
I was home by dark.
On Sunday I mentioned that I might want to go up to see what was happening colorwise up at Guardsman's Pass.
It was 6:30 when we finally got around to driving up.
Turns out that was the perfect time to go!
For the record: These pictures have NOT had any color saturation added!

The sun was minutes away from setting and so it set the aspen woods aglow!

 

 

 

 

 

I think I can safely say the aspen were at their peak.
I am hoping to drive up there again this morning to catch the apen in morning light too.

 

All along the road, where ever there was a wide spot for parking, people were setting up their camera gear.
Bernie chatted with a professional photographer with a massive telephoto lens.  That photographer was taking pictures of a (Olympic?) biking team riding through the fall colors on the bit of road that you could see in the previous shots.
According to Bernie, the guy was pretty frustrated by the cars and motocycles also using the roadway.
The poor bikers had to keep riding the road over and over and over again...

As dazzling as a pure clear blue sky looks against aspen, the presences of clouds make for a much more interesting photo IMHO.

 

Bernie did wet a line after I shot my pictures.
It was nearly dark by then.

I was flat on my back aside the roadway getting this picture.