A Coming Change

Looking out my office window, the mountain ash is loaded with red berries.  I think back to last year and watching the snow pile on the berries, unsheltered by the leaves, open to the weather moving in.

In preparation for the winter, I hike.  Taking trails up valleys, I push my heart rate and build my cardio.  I try to go three times a week.  I’d go everyday if I could, but three days seems to be the limit.  Pulling my pack out of the car I hesitate, feeling the chill air dropping out of the valley.  Should I put on more than t-shirt?  I decide to leave the extra layer off and shouldering the pack head up the trail.

Glancing up the valley from the road, where I’ve parked, the trees and pucker brush in the avalanche chutes still hold the summer varieties greens.  But moving up, first I notice the cottonwoods are turning at the extremities.  The leaves on the very tips of the branches turned a yellowish green.  As if not quite committed.  Wondering.

In the last week the valleys changed.

In the under story a five–leafed ground cover tuned brilliant orange since I last moved up here.  Like a bad shag rug from the 70’s it spreads burnt orange across between the bases of the trees, the first sure sign of a fall.

As I hike up the, I notice more and more of the trees hint at yellow or orange.  Individual aspens sometimes have a single branch starting to turn.  In the avi chutes, high, close to tree line, single bushes stand a brilliant yellow against the rest still green.

At the top of this canyon, where the canyon splits and the trail branches following each, a log bench sits. I drop my pack, immediately feeling chilled as the cool air hits the wet shirt on my back.  Pulling my fuzzy from under the pack straps, I slip it over my head and sit with the pack between my legs to pull out my late lunch.  First an orange, then a roll and some cheese and finishing with a couple of handfuls of granola. I gaze out at the mountains around me.

Only a thousand feet below tree line, the view up the canyons is of avi pucker brush and struggling clumps of alpine fir twisted, contorted and formed by the driving snow and winds of winter.  Looking down, the valley fills with timber broken only by the stripes of the scoured avalanche runs.  High, close to me, the stands mix of cedars, firs and aspens.  The aspens this high hold a hint of yellow shot through their heads.  The colors mute lower in the valley as more furs fill in and the aspens give way to cottonwoods and alders.

As I finish, the sun drops behind the ridge.  Standing, I wonder if I should leave the fuzzy on or discard the layer?  I leave it on and head back down.

A change lies ahead.