Some final images, maybe, of our quickly fading Fall….
November 27, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: Big Cottonwood Canyon, Butler Fork, Fall, Golden Fall, hiking, Millcreek Canyon, photography, Pipeline Trail, Salt Lake City Utah, sun-lit grass seed-heads, Utah outdoors, Wasatch Mountains, Wasatch National Forest | 30 Comments
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November 26, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: Big Cottonwood Canyon, Dromedary Peak, Dromedary Peak in November, hiking, image made 11-17-2013, Lake Blanche Utah, photography, snow hiking, Wasatch Mountains, Wasatch Mountains in winter, Wasatch National Forest | 18 Comments
Our mountain images of Fall can have such stark contrasts sometimes…the below image is from October of this year, looking across Mill A Basin and out into Big Cottonwood Canyon….

…and this last image is looking across the basin from a slightly different angle…just by turning to the right a few degrees…but taken in September of last year when all of the Aspen were still covered in their golden robes…..

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November 22, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: Big Cottonwood Canyon, Butler Fork, Golden Quaking Aspen, hiking, Mill A Basin, Mill A Basin in Fall, Mt Raymond, photography, Salt Lake City Utah, Wasatch Mountains, Wasatch National Forest | 21 Comments
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November 20, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: Big Cottonwood Canyon, Great Western Trail, hiking, Indian Paintbrush, Lake Desolation, Millcreek Canyon, photography, Salt Lake City Utah, Wasatch Mountain wildflowers, Wasatch Mountains, Wasatch National Forest, Wildflowers | 16 Comments
Hiking Butler Fork from the trail-head in Big Cottonwood Canyon up to Baker’s Pass on the ridge between Big Cottonwood and Millcreek Canyons provides magnificent views of the surrounding mountains…. From left to right, those are Dromedary, Sunrise, and Broads Fork Twin Peaks…all part of the Wasatch Mountains that provide the natural, eastern geographic boundary for the Salt Lake Valley in Utah, USA.

November 19, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: Broads Fork Twin Peaks, Butler Fork trail, Dromedary Peak, hiking, photography, Salt Lake City Utah, snow covered mountains, snow-capped mountains, Sunrise Peak, Utah, Wasatch Mountains, Wasatch National Forest | 16 Comments
…look at things is if you might never see them again…?

I imagine that we would see those things with a certain richness…

…one that would surpass the experience of when we first saw them.

I think it would be bittersweet, as well…

…for while we would be sad that we would never see them again, we would be joyous that we had ever beheld them at all….

November 18, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: Butler Fork, dried wildflowers, Fall, hiking, Mt Olympus Wilderness Area, Mt Raymond, photography, Utah, Wasatch Mountains, Wasatch National Forest | 36 Comments
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November 14, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: cloud formations, elephant cloud, hiking, Little Cottonwood Canyon, Lone Peak Wilderness, photography, Salt Lake City Utah, Utah hiking, Wasatch Mountains, Wasatch National Forest, White Pine Canyon | 25 Comments
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November 13, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: Aspen, Big Cottonwood Canyon, Butler Fork, Fall, hiking, Mountain Ash, Mt Olympus Wilderness Area, nature, photography, Salt Lake City Utah, Utah hiking, Wasatch Mountains, Wasatch National Forest, winter berries | 32 Comments
Captured in an image from my first few months in Utah, back in 2010, these are the Oquirrh Mountains that form the western geographic boundary of the Salt Lake Valley. While they are not much to look at for several months of the year, they do clean-up nicely with the clouds and snow.

November 12, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: cloudy mountains, Fall, Fall-colored neighborhood, Oquirrh Mountains, photography, Salt Lake City Utah, snow-capped mountains | 16 Comments
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November 11, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: Big Cottonwood Canyon, Butler Fork, dried wildflowers, Dromedary Peak, hiking, Mill A Basin, Mineral Fork, photography, Salt Lake City hiking, Salt Lake City Utah, snow covered mountains, Sunset Peak, Utah hiking, Utah outdoors, Wasatch Mountains, Wasatch National Forest | 26 Comments
I don’t have the common or Latin names for the fungi shared below, so I trusted “Google Translate” with the Latin version of “assorted fungi,” and there it is, confusaque fungi….

This is only a handful of the images of fungi that I’ve made since Spring of this year.

They represent my forays into the canyons of the Wasatch Mountains and were found near the trails leading to places like –

Bells Canyon Upper Reservoir, White Pine Lake, Mt Aire…

and Days Fork, the trail-head, of which, is located in the Spruces Campground, about eight or nine miles up into Big Cottonwood Canyon.

And if you’re interested, Mt Aire is in Millcreek Canyon, White Pine Lake is in Little Cottonwood Canyon…

and Bells Canyon Upper Reservoir is located in…yep, Bells Canyon, just south of Little Cottonwood Canyon.

November 9, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: Days Fork, fungi, hiking, photography, toadstools, Utah | 28 Comments
We mark ourselves here as a tiny part of that something-greater, a piece of the mystery and puzzle and wonder that is life…be it an accident or a gift, we do well to cherish it….

November 8, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: Big Cottonwood Canyon, Butler Fork, cares will drop off like autumn leaves, hiking, John Muir, Mt Olympus Wilderness Area, photography, Salt Lake City Utah, Utah hiking, Wasatch National Forest | 25 Comments
Call it what you will, but that’s what it was…and that’s the view I had while driving home from work yesterday afternoon…. The mass of rock and earth to the left of the cloudburst is Mt Olympus…rising to 9,026 feet in elevation with a prominence of 4,700 ft over the Salt Lake Valley.

November 5, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: cloudburst of snow, clouds over mountains, Mt. Olympus, photography, Salt Lake City Utah, snow falling, snowfall, Wasatch Mountains | 24 Comments
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November 4, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: Fall, fall colors, granite mountain, hiking, Little Cottonwood Canyon, maple leaves, Mormon Temple Quarry Nature Trail, photography, Salt Lake City Utah, turning leaves, Wasatch Mountains | 25 Comments
No hiking today, but I did take a rainy/snowy windshield tour of the northeastern part of Salt Lake City this morning. I had never seen the light atop the capitol building, but there it is…a beacon of something or other. I made this image from the paved loop of City Creek Canyon, just north and east of the Utah State Capitol.

November 3, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: City Creek Canyon, City Creek Canyon in Fall, photography, rainy morning, Salt Lake City Utah, Utah, Utah State Capitol | 14 Comments
on a sunday morning
feel the crisp air on your face and the warming sun on your back as we follow the trail off and into the waiting mountains
turn around and marvel at the white bark glowing in the sunrise
winter-bare aspen preparing for the cold
the rich greenery of summer’s forest floor has turned golden and brown and looks bleak without the morning’s sun
but we are here with the waking day
rejoicing at the trail beneath our feet and the burning in our legs and lungs as we press ever upward from valley floor to mountain top
come walk with me and sing our quiet sunday song

November 1, 2013 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors | Tags: Big Cottonwood Canyon, Butler Fork, hiking, Mt Olympus Wilderness Area, peace, photography, quiet, Salt Lake City outdoors, Salt Lake City Utah, serenity, solitude, Utah hiking, Wasatch Mountains, Wasatch National Forest | 38 Comments