Fall Colors on White Pine Pass
The weather is changing. The nights are cooling off. The patterns are shifting. Our weekdays are sunny, warm and beautiful. Our weekends have been rainy and gross. So, Mark and I decided to take a short break from climbing and search out some of the best fall colors in Colorado. We ended up on the West White Pine Mountain trail, early on a Saturday morning.
There’s about a ba-jillion amazing photos from the day in the gallery!
I know, I know, Dylan’s awesome GeoMashups plugin will make the same cool google maps of my gps data as the one I just stuck in here. But I’ve been to lazy to upgrade, I’m sorry. It’s on the list for this upcoming rainy weekend, I promise!
So, for our hike, we headed about an hour west of town, up and down some winding remote canyons, and eventually found our way to this trailhead. We have hiked this trail (to the summit) before, and I knew the aspens would be fantastic. In fact, they were totally amazing.
It’s October in Colorado, and hunting season is in full swing. I knew this trail was remote and had easy access by 4wd vehicles, so we brought bright colored clothing for the whole family to make sure we were visible to any hunters in the area. Liv had to deal with wearing one of Mark’s red shirts for the day. It made her look completely goofy, and she got comments all day long. But she didn’t get shot at! On our way home, we stopped at Jax and bought her a hunter’s orange vest.
We hiked up to the pass, meandering through aspen groves, pine forests, and open prairies along the way. Our GPS track looks a bit like confused moose wandering up the side of the mountain. On this trip, we didn’t hike to the summit of either peak, though. The aspens were our goal, and they petered out just below the saddle.
When we got home, I had almost 400 shots of yellow aspens on my camera! So, it’s going to take a while for me to get all of my favorites up on the site. But, I think there’s enough here now to show it was a fantastic day, and a really amazingly beautiful hike.
