Twenty One Days

That's right. Twenty one days, and I returned to Vedauwoo. I reshot images of the same places I was at, to see the changes. And everything in those spots HAS changed from the 'Giving it another go' post. Was another nice warm day, mid 70s and cloudless. I'd rather have some clouds. Makes for better photographs!

The meadow has changed a lot. All the grass is brown now, and the fall colors are pretty strong. Last time everything was green.

The waterfall has returned to a 'normal' flow, just the little flow through a notch in the rock. This is what is usually looks like.

And of course the 'rapids' are no more. Just the steady mild flow of water here, on its way to the little waterfall. The big flow, wherever it was from, is gone.

Still an assortment of dragonflys about. Managed to get pretty close to this one. They'll all be gone soon.

These trees kind of struck me. Very fall orange/yellow on one side, a small split through the middle, and still mostly green on the other. Who will win? Neither. Old Man Winter will best them both...

One more shot of the orangish-yellow trees against a cloudless blue sky.

Considering the color, these leaves won't last much longer. Still pretty green in town, I'll have to catch some of those as they change I think. The hills are about to lose most of their color. It'll be October very soon, so when the weather finally decides to change from this ongoing summer pattern, it'll probably slam us hard with the cold and wet stuff.

Falling into line

Hey - it's fall! Doesn't feel much like it though. It's been upper 70s and 80s and dry for weeks now. More on the dry in a moment. Even though the weather feels like summer, the trees know better. And the color change is going on in earnest right now all over the Rockies. So I decided to hit Pole Mountain again.

After my struggle with mud and mosquitoes and such back in July, I hadn't been back. But the long dry spell has changed everything. The mud and the bugs were gone, and the colors were out!

Ordinary scenery along one of the many hiking trails.

Perhaps better personal hygiene might solve this problem. Someone put these signs up recently, not sure why. I went left!

The aspens are turning, along one of my favorite (and usually muddiest) trails out here.

Remember that dry I mentioned? In the distance you can see smoke from the wildfires down west of Loveland, Colorado in this picture.

And not to be outdone, some distance to the north of where I was hiking today, a wildfire broke out. It was under control within a day or two, no major damage. But everything all over the region is dangerously dry from a month and a half of hot dry weather with no rain at all.

Giving it another go

It's September already? Then it must be time to try a hike again! Since I haven't been out since early July, decided the warm, dry weekend weather was telling me I better get a hike in before weather turns again.

So I geared up and headed out to Vedauwoo for the first time this year. And I took some more potent bug repellent just in case!
Fortunately, I didn't need it. No bug problems at all. It was warm, breezy to windy at times, and clear or just partly cloudy. A pretty nice day. Everything is still green, or just getting very faint hints of changing to fall yellows. Couple weeks and its gonna look a lot different. Sad to see that I'm seeing even more brown pines as more of them die thanks to the Pine Beetles.

In one spot is the little stream/falls area. Normally barely running. I would expect just the lightest trickle this time of year. Nope! It was flowing harder than I've ever seen here. Not sure where this water is coming from, but its moving!

This is upstream of the falls, a little rocky 'rapids' area. Water appears out of a culvert pipe here, from somewhere, and it's whitewater!