Utah’s Early Winter

Issue #132 - Autumn in Utah's Wasatch Range

On October 1 the weather forecast called for overnight rain. A load of snow was dropped down the length of the Wasatch Range. All roads were still open, even the gravel road to the Albion Basin Campground at the far end of the canyon. I stopped at some of the spots where I had photographed autumn color the previous day. Snow on dark evergreens added to the textures and made many scenes monochromatic. After walking a few hundred yards up the trail to Cecret Lake, I turned around. The trail, covered with a blanket of snow, was difficult to follow. A light snow was still falling.

I headed back to my 4Runner. Albion Basin can get up to fifty feet of snow through a winter. In less than an hour, I drove back down Little Cottonwood Canyon, headed three miles north and drove the length of Big Cottonwood Canyon to the junction with the Guardsman Pass Road. Then I headed up to the summit. A large grove (2.5 miles up the road), that had lost all its leaves a few weeks ago and looked like bare aspens yesterday, had become a ghostly forest with all bare branches outlined with ice. Distant patches of yellow aspen added touches of color to high-key monochromatic scenes.

​I walked the length of this grove four times, using all my lenses, trying to capture changes of light as a muted winter sun briefly appeared through openings in moving layers of clouds. With all my camera gear, I finally returned to a warm car. I had dressed for a fall trip to Utah and not for a winter in the Yukon.