Am I strange because I have a favorite tree? There has to be many people like me, right. Aspens are my tree. As a little girl, I always looked forward to seeing the friendly tree when we drove to the mountains. I say friendly tree because of the way their leaves flutter back and forth, as if to wave at you. I’d quietly say “hello” to them as we drove by. But, I never got to see them in all their fall glory until much later. We only went to the mountains in the summer growing up so I only saw them filled with bright green leaves. When I started skiing with Mark, their leaves were long gone on our drive to Mammoth and on the slopes.
It wasn’t until we moved to Arizona that I got to see my friendly trees become beautiful jewels in the forest. The large groves on the road up to the Snowbowl ski area are spectacular in late September/early October.
We went to an early October wedding in Golden, CO a few years ago and went to Estes Park the day before. We were a little late for the fall show but the yellow that remained was still beautiful. Looking across the landscape as we drove reminded me of a giant quilt with the yellow aspens acting as the divider between the green pine tree pieces of fabric.
This year we planned a trip around the changing colors.
We like to take our RZR around the Paiute Trail near Marysvale, UT. There are several hundred miles of trails that traverse the area. We climb to the top of mountains, check out local mines, roll through streams and see wildlife. Our trips there have been very fun and every time we ride through an aspen grove we talk about how cool it would be to be there in the fall.
Our base camp is South Forty RV Park in Marysvale. They are open spring through fall and Jim knows the area like the back of his hand. Mark visits him each morning of our stay and Jim lines out a ride on our map. Every time we go he gives us something new to explore.
This trip was all about the leaves. We arrived early enough for an afternoon ride that climbed part of a mountain and down a trail that had several stream crossings. Major bummer as we didn’t see many fall colors, just a few maple trees. The aspens seemed to be in full summer green. We reserved the camp spots and planned the trip for this week because this was the beginning of peak color. What the heck.
When we got back to the campground we talked to Jim and Terry, owners of the campground. They said that the wet spring was delaying the leaf change. They did have good news though. The next two nights were going to dip into the upper 30’s and would jump start the colors and we should expect to see changes every day of our trip. Whew, we had 9 other people in our group and didn’t want them to leave disappointed. Them! What about me! This was my fall colors super bowl!
Jim and Terry were right. Every day the aspens changed on the trails culminating in a big beautiful sight on our last day.
We picked up a familiar trail across the highway and headed on a trail that ran along a creek as it climbed. We noticed more color along the trail than two days prior. Maybe we would get lucky and see a handful of aspens together showing off their bright colors after all.
We stopped at a small lake for lunch, one we’d been to on a previous trip. I was hoping it would be rimmed with bright colors of yellow, orange and red but no such luck. After lunch we headed to another lake that we liked from previous trips. Call me strange but I like to revisit places on our trail rides, I like to see how it changes each visit. From there we plotted the next part of the ride. We decided to take the long way around back to camp along brand new trails for us, adding 25 or so miles to the ride. Hey, if there’s a shot at seeing some leaves change, I’m all in.
The new trail took us along lots of tree lined trails and through some vast open land before ducking back into the trees. We climbed, descended and climbed some more. Then it happened.
We finally got to some color! Big swaths of beautiful fall color! We make a big sweeping left turn at the top of a ridge and could see bright yellows and orange across the valley on our right. I think I made Mark stop five different times for pictures.
As beautiful as the faraway sight was, up close was even better. The trail curled around a small valley and up the other side as we drove through the bright colors. We had arrived, smack in the middle of the beautiful fall colors!
Mark must have seen my excitement through my helmet because he cruised to a stop. When we trail ride, it’s usually about covering miles seeing as much as we can with minimal stops. All these years of marriage he’s learned to telepathically know when I want to stop for pictures. Out I jumped for pictures, pictures and more pictures.
Our quest for fall colors was complete. We pulled out of the campground early the next morning for the long drive home. I spent a good amount of the drive scrolling through all the pretty pictures with a fall colored smile on my face.