The still waters of Oak Creek reflect the multiple dark trunks of trees with leaves all shades of yellow, green and orange. The creek becomes a mirror reflecting the beauty of our Arizona Fall Season. We drove down into Oak Creek from Flagstaff last Friday and spent the day hiking and stopping many times along the road to walk down to the creek. They have a new rule that you need to have a "Red Rock Pass" to park along the road. Well, after much discussion, me thinking we were not parking if Jules stayed in the car and Jules saying that he already had his picture snapped by one of those portable speed traps and didn't want to get 2 tickets in one weekend, we decided to get a pass. We found out that Jules "Golden Age" National Park pass worked, so we didn't have to pay, just show the pass! Nothing is simple these days, however, the beauty is unchangeable.
Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot The creek narrows, water falling over rocks, gurgling, bubbling, frothy, white
The red rocks used to be a sea. Arizona with a beach long ago, global warming before humans, how could that be?
Branches of the Manzanita bush, matching the red of the cliffs and the red of the maple in Fall
Arizona cypress trees. The trunks are reddish brown with peeling gray bark. These cedar trees grow only in a few canyons in Arizona, mostly in Southern Arizona. I'd never seen these trees before and we stopped at several ranger stations, looked in books and finally got our hunch confirmed by a Ranger at Walnut Canyon who is writing her thesis on Juniper trees. The detective sluthes at work!
The water mirrors the blue sky, trees and multicolored leaves.
Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees. Faith Baldwin
A little lower down in the canyon there is more green. You can follow the fall colors down hill week by week if you like.
We went up to Flagstaff to see the Fall colors. Most people think of Arizona as lacking in seasonal changes. However, Fall colour in Flagstaff is very predictable. The 2nd weekend in October brings the height of color. The green of this aspen grove is changed almost overnight into a beautiful yellow roofed outdoor cathedral. Something about walking through through that beautiful grove, brings back other Fall hikes. Hiking with Star in Zion a couple years ago, driving through aspen groves around San Francisco Peaks, walking through our Rim Aspen grove when the kids were little, it goes on and on. I remember the last hike with my Dad which was in Oak Creek Canyon North Fork. We didn't know yet that his melanoma was back. We really really enjoyed that hike, spending time together with the leaves falling all around. A family we met playing on a "bouncy pole". The little blond guy asked me to join them and I did. He didn't buy me calling it a horse, stating that horses don't bonce. This cute kid was climbing up onto this felled aspen. He was probably 5 or 6 feet above the ground and having the time of his life. Our Flagstaff neighbor, Barbara joined us on our hike. Green, blue, yellow and white together for quite a picture. One of the mother trees in the grove This is the first aspen we saw So many leaves on the ground, but most of them still on the trees. In one to two weeks the trees will all be bare. Glad we got to enjoy them!
The still waters of Oak Creek reflect the multiple dark trunks of trees with leaves all shades of yellow, green and orange. The creek becomes a mirror reflecting the beauty of our Arizona Fall Season. We drove down into Oak Creek from Flagstaff last Friday and spent the day hiking and stopping many times along the road to walk down to the creek. They have a new rule that you need to have a "Red Rock Pass" to park along the road. Well, after much discussion, me thinking we were not parking if Jules stayed in the car and Jules saying that he already had his picture snapped by one of those portable speed traps and didn't want to get 2 tickets in one weekend, we decided to get a pass. We found out that Jules "Golden Age" National Park pass worked, so we didn't have to pay, just show the pass! Nothing is simple these days, however, the beauty is unchangeable.
Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot
The creek narrows, water falling over rocks, gurgling, bubbling, frothy, white
The red rocks used to be a sea. Arizona with a beach long ago, global warming before humans, how could that be?
Branches of the Manzanita bush, matching the red of the cliffs and the red of the maple in Fall
Arizona cypress trees. The trunks are reddish brown with peeling gray bark. These cedar trees grow only in a few canyons in Arizona, mostly in Southern Arizona. I'd never seen these trees before and we stopped at several ranger stations, looked in books and finally got our hunch confirmed by a Ranger at Walnut Canyon who is writing her thesis on Juniper trees. The detective sluthes at work!
The water mirrors the blue sky, trees and multicolored leaves.
Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees. Faith Baldwin
A little lower down in the canyon there is more green. You can follow the fall colors down hill week by week if you like.
