Golden glow

For many of us, autumn is our favorite season of the year—not too hot, not too cold, just right for taking a ride around our glorious foothills before the last leaves have fallen. Somehow, the sky looks bluer and the sun on our arms feels warmer, and we can’t help but smile more, too, as if we’re reflecting the glow.

It seems strange to me that the tourism folks in the Valley haven’t made a bigger thing of the fall season in the foothills and mountains. Tourist buses, rvs, and small campers cruise down our highways occasionally, but maybe we aren’t crazy about the idea of sharing our favorite places with more tourists, the way that New England has tours to ogle the red maples, as popular as the famous cathedrals that are tourist meccas in Europe.

If we can’t get out on some days, we close our eyes and imagine. That’s what I’ve been doing instead of efficiently typing this column on my keyboard, while the beautiful aspen grove on the Nature Conservancy calendar above the computer isn’t helping me one bit to concentrate. I want out! And I’ll be getting out in just another minute.

I have my own list of favorite places, as you do too most likely. Living where I do, RG Road 14 is nearby, so I often go up that one far enough to reach an aspen grove where I listen for Warbling Vireos in summer and early September. About the time that the vireos are departing for the South, the first patches of gold and green aspens can be seen across the ravine on hillsides before the big show of color explodes. 

By mid-September, I go on to Summitville. After a stop to see the improvements there, if I have time, I go down through Stoner and Jasper to the Cat Creek road. Or I go the other way around, up Cat Creek to Jasper and Stoner. 

A visit to Creede is fun any time of year, but the aspen color is beautiful between South Fork and Creede and then better and better as you go farther and farther. Or try Antonito to La Manga Pass, pausing to see the historic church at Las Mesitas on the way. Across the Valley, the lower portion of the Mosca Pass Trail at Great Sand Dunes National Park can have nice color, and others choose the Crestone area or farther north to Kerber Creek and Bonanza.

By late September, before global warming, it used to seem too late for most aspens, so a strong wind could come along and scatter a blizzard of leaves from the groves at any time, dropping the curtain on the show for the year. We still will have October and the blazing yellow cottonwoods to enjoy, though, so don’t put the cameras and binoculars away yet, for the best is yet to come— Indian Summer.

Nothing can beat the foliage down here in the Valley in October when country roads and ditches are lined with breathtaking swaths of cottonwoods. Forgetting the fact that wintry winds and even snowflakes could strike soon, we revel in the mellow yellow while it lasts.

So often, when I have a short errand to do such as driving to the post office, my old Honda and I refuse to go home. We take one more quick spin out to the end of the pavement on RG 14 to see the glowing, golden cottonwoods along that road. After all, they might be bare the next time I drive out that way.

Take a deep breath, and then force yourself back to whatever you know you should have been getting done, like sitting at the computer and typing a newspaper column.