The end of summer sneaks up with startling abruptness in the mountains. Sagey greys and dusky rabbitbrush topped with yellow sprigs of late summer flowers, surrounded by grasses browned in the summer heat. Fine dust matting leaves. A tired respiration seems to heave up from the canyons in hot blasts—last gasps. Bellowing itself for the soon-to-be colors plashed about its flanks like so many embers of red, braided fingers of yellow and orange. A few summer holdouts paint the hillsides early.

Down-drafting night winds cool the canyons. And the plants are shaken. It’s like another spring with everything awakening, only this time rousing from the slumber of hazy summer doldrums. Chilly nights, warm, dry days prep the mountains for fall’s color burst. But now, here at the cusp of autumn, it only flirts with a glimpse of what will come. As many as can busily store energy for the long winter ahead.

The seasons twine about, precessing around each year which are mocked at by the *Jardine Juniper looking down at us from another four miles up the trail. The young-looking aspen surrounds the juniper’s mountain and taunts Jardine’s **youth—Quakies’ braided trunks nothing in comparison to its own roots coursing through acres of soil.

Now, at the end of summer, age spots appear—holes eaten through like so many moths on wool—in stark contrast to the smooth white skin of its bark. Other trees are creased and scarred with branch nodes—millions of eyes turned to our every move. These riddled leaves are a temporary condition, remedied every year for generations.

I will go home and turn my thoughts to cool night air breezing through my windows. To the sun marching southward along the 9000′ spine of mountains a mile from my house. I will hope for the colors splattered across its canvas. And I will dream of cutthroats, their orange slash a reminder year round of autumns that have been and will be.

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* The Jardine Juniper (Juniperus scopulorum—Rocky Mountain juniper) has been dated anywhere from 1500 years to 3500 years old.

** Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides) reproduce through both sexual reproduction and cloning. Stands of them here in the Great Basin are thought be as old as the last glacial period, 10,000-13,000 years ago.

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