Dusk, From Boulder Mountain. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A distant peak in sunset light beyond autumn aspens in the Boulder Mountain area.
This photograph marks a step in my process of learning about the remarkable landscape of southern Utah. I’ve written previous about how I managed to miss photographing Utah for a long time — it is a long story having to do with Sierra obsessions and family travels though less visually stimulating portions of Utah when I was very young. My first real photographic visit was in the early 2000s in the springtime… and I was taken by this landscape. On our way across the state we passed through the Boulder Mountain area, and I made a mental note to try to revisit this area’s extensive aspen groves in the fall.
A few years later we went back in autumn, on a long trip that started in the Eastern Sierra, crossed empty areas of Nevada, and arrived in Southeast Utah… where I discovered that fall colors arrive earlier there than in the Sierra. When we eventually worked our way across Boulder Mountain it was clear that we were catching the tail end of the aspen colors, and many groves were already bare. At dusk we found a location where lines of still-colorful trees alternated with bare trunks. Among the photographs I made was this one, looking toward the last light on the Capitol Reef area and higher mountains beyond.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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Hi G Dan- I love this shot! Southern Utah is one of my favorite locations but I have not been to Boulder Mtn in the fall. When would you estimate the color hits it’s peak on average? I am planning a trip to the Capitol Reef area this fall and would love to catch the color on Boulder Mtn while I am there.
Thank you!
Bryan
btw- Your CA fall color book has been a helpful guide for many fall trips to the Eastern Sierra- thanks for putting that together!
Thanks, Bryan.
I’m not an expert (yet) on the fall color timing in Southern Utah, but I’m getting a better idea! I’m primarily oriented to the Eastern Sierra Nevada Fall color schedule. (I’m glad to hear that you have been using my Sierra fall color book!) In that region the best color is, broadly speaking, perhaps the first 2/3 to 3/4 or October, with a peak perhaps around the second week of the month.
On our first fall visit to Utah we started our trip with a quick visit to the Sierra right around the beginning of October, then arriving in Southwest Utah (Brian Head area) on perhaps the 2nd or 3rd of the month. It seemed to me that the color was a couple of weeks ahead of where it was in the Sierra, making the peak perhaps more of an end-of-September thing than a 2nd-week-of-October event, at least if we’re thinking of aspen color. If I were going back to Utah for aspen color this fall (not likely with the pandemic) I’d probably target a week or so before the end of September.
These photographs from Boulder Mountain were made on October 7. The photographs show a lot of color… but that’s because I specifically photographed the places where there still was some! These trees are at the tail end of the color peak… and we skipped past a whole lot more bare and nearly bare trees to find these.
However, there is more to the fall color story in Utah than just the aspens, and for this reason the color season seems to extend over a rather long period. In red rock country (including Capitol Reef) lots of other trees (and some bushes) including cottonwoods and more produce wonderful color in the second half of October. IN some places there is reportedly great color in the first week of November. For example, when I was in Zion in late October I was told that some of the best color was still to come.
So the Utah timing ends up being a choice between aspens (late-September), canyon country (late October) and perhaps even a bit later in places like Zion.
The solution, of course, is to spend about six weeks in Utah making photographs. Which doesn’t sound like a bad prospect at all. :-)
Dan