Utah - Fall 2023

My buddy, Alex, and I planned this trip for a year — creating spreadsheets of possible routes, gear we needed, campgrounds, and information in case there was an emergency in any given location along our way. Things slowly lined up. We were to spend a little over two weeks chasing fall colors and whatever else on a drive from our home town in Oregon to Southern Utah. Planned out mostly with the added option of completely pivoting on any and all plans, we set out prepared to just go with the flow and see what we see.

A road trip to a completely different landscape can really put things in perspective. As compared to the abrupt change encountered when hopping on a flight in one place to then arriving in a completely different ecosystem, a drive across the land allows you to experience the transition more subtly. Cottonwoods hardly dot the landscape in eastern Oregon but start appearing more frequently as you approach the southwest. Exposed basalt formations gradually phase out introducing the granite, limestone, and shale minerals of the Wasatch to then transitioning to predominant sandstone of the Colorado plateau. Pine and sagebrush species are dominant in one area and slowly fade as new species are introduced in the other. In the course of the drive, these changes slowly take place before our eyes much like the often subtle changes in one’s own lifetime. Transitions like these are most beautifully experienced slowly over time but require a fair amount of intentional attention to recognize.

Below are images I came up with after a couple weeks spent exploring the Colorado plateau — a place I so desperately want to return to.