Oh, Flagstaff, now you’re just showing off . . .

 

After my hike yesterday, I realized, Flagstaff, I’ve been doin’ you wrong. Haven’t been giving you your propers. Here I am posting about all these other places and how pretty they are while you have been putting on a stunning show right under my nose, and I’ve just been ignoring you.

To make amends, I woke up this morning at 5:30 and headed out to Snowbowl again, determined to catch the sunrise. This was a major accomplishment since I went to bed around 2 am. Made it just in time.

I sat in front of that grove of aspen, waiting for the sun to make it up over the mountains. I sat for a long time. During that time, I took approximately 327 pictures of this bush

because I have it in my head that I need to have something interesting in the foreground–whatever THAT means.

I thought that when the sun finally made it over the mountains, it would light up that huge grove of aspen, but it didn’t work out that way, though at some point there was a really cool shadow of the peaks–see it?

Fed up with waiting, I decided to just walk into the grove,

and this, it turns out, was a wise decision

because inside was awesome.

After that, I moved onto Aspen Corner, where I found all sorts of interesting things I could stick in the foreground, like FENCES

and LOGS

and a SPLIT LOG.

And you know me: I love a good path.

I also took a BUNCH of pictures of the leaves on the ground, so many, in fact, that they will be the subject of their own post. (Ohmygod, how can you STAND THE WAIT?)

In the past, I always made the mistake of trying to fit the entire forest in the frame, so this time I aimed for interesting perspectives that would try to the give you the impression of the forest rather than its totality. I took lots of pictures looking up

and lots of pictures of segments of trunks.

Finally, I went in search of a more sweeping view of all that gorgeous color. And look what I found.

So beautiful, I just had to make a panorama of it, of course.

Don’t forget to turn in next time for my thrilling post on fallen leaves, also meant to give you the impression of forest.