Ironton Autumn

Ironton Aspens

Glorious fall colors at Ironton, along Red Mountain Pass south of Ouray, Colorado. Red Mountain #1 rises in the background.

There’s something so magnificent about fall which photos can barely capture. With every changing of the seasons, whether winter, spring, summer, or fall, I say to myself “This is my favorite season of all”. But it really is hard to deny that fall is the most spectacular. I don’t think that the mountains in Colorado can get any more beautiful!

Twin Peaks from Ouray

Twin Peaks Ouray

Twin Peaks, as seen from my porch, in Ouray. This is the view I see out of my window every day as I work on the computer. It’s pretty torturous to gaze up there wishing I was hiking when I’m stuck in the office! As you can see, the fall colors are filling in around here. We also got some thunder and pouring rain from these dark clouds, which is a bit unusual this late in the season.

Sunset on Timpanogos

Timpanogos Summit Panorama

This last weekend I went up to Utah to visit my parents, who are building a house in Midway, and my sister, who was visiting and is about to move back to Berlin. On Saturday night I was supposed to go to a play with them, but my mom was kind enough to let me play hooky to go hike up Mount Timpanogos instead.

Since it was almost a full moon, I decided to go watch the sunset from the summit and hike back down under the moonlight. I’ve been up the mountain twice before via the Aspen Grove trail (including a glorious snowboard descent), so this time I took a different trail – the Timpooneke Trail. The trail gains ~4,500 feet over ~8 miles, and after a quick three hour hike I reached the summit at 5pm, with a full two hours to relax up there by myself, soaking in the views and taking photos.

Timpanogos may be Utah’s most beloved mountain, and indeed on this Saturday I counted over 300 signatures in the summit register – all from that day! It’s great to see to see that so many people enjoy this majestic peak that’s in their backyard.

See my sunset photos from Timpanogos here.

I look forward to returning soon and photographing Timp under a blanket of winter snow.