Every fall, for almost as long as I've been a photographer, I've been heading up the hill to the mountains in Colorado. Late September is when 2 of my favorite events in life come together. The elk have begun to gather in the meadows at dawn and dusk and the rut is in full swing. If you've never heard the bugling of bull elk during the mating season you've missed an amazing spectacle. It's one of the sounds in nature that sends chills up and down my back, much like a wolf howl.
Mostly, though, I make the trip to photograph the changing colors of the aspen trees. Sometimes I go north to Rocky Mountain National Park but mostly I've been heading to the Kebler Pass area west of the town of Crested Butte. It's a magical time and the colors from year to year are never the same yet always amazing. And Kebler Pass sits in the middle of the largest Aspen forest on the planet.
This year, however, things have started to change. I noticed it when I came back from a shooting trip to Utah in mid September. I planned my trip to coincide with being in the Kebler Pass area around the 12th of September. A bit early I guess..in most years anyway. I didn't expect to see a tremendous amount of color but thought I might see a little bit. I was totally unprepared for what I found. Entire hillsides and groves of aspens had already dropped their leaves. Many others had leaves that went from green to brown and were ready to fall. No more grand landscapes....later there may have been some more intimate shots but the classic Kebler Pass view of an entire hillside explosion of color ranging from green to yellow to red to orange is no more.
A little research when I got home turned up the reason. S.A.D. Sudden Aspen Decline syndrome. I don't know the reasons behind it but the aspen forests of Colorado and other Rocky Mountain states are dying. There's a part of me that hopes this was just a 1 or 2 year problem but all I've read says otherwise. We may have seen the last of the great color shows in the Rockies. At least for my lifetime. And it's a sad departure for me. What the heck am I going to do next September? I've got lots of elk photos though I suppose I could always use more. But something tells me you may not see me in the Rockies in September.
There is hope, though! One of my childhood friends who lives near Table Rock lake in Missouri posted some shots of the changing colors there. I'm not sure when the color change begins but what I saw whetted my appetite to photograph some hardwood forests for a change. Lots more reds and oranges than the aspens and who knows...maybe it's a different time frame so I'll still be able to shoot the elk AND the changing colors in the Ozarks. Something to look forward to. And besides....Crested Butte is still the wildflower capital of Colorado. I'll be back there in July.
So there it is. S.A.D. has definitely made me sad. But there's always hope.
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