Fall Colors of Kebler Pass
Images From a Magical Coloring Book
I had heard about the fall colors of Southwest Colorado. Descriptions and photos had made it look like images from a magical coloring book. Explosions of yellow, red, and orange interspersed with blue spruce and green pine created stunning images of the mountains surrounding the view in every direction.
As I planned my trip, I reached out to my photographer friends asking where to find the colors. Ridgeway, Silverton, Ouray, and Telluride all came up, but the constant was driving Kebler Pass from Crested Butte. As one friend shared, “It’s an amazing array of colors.” So that is where I headed.
Finding my way through the quaint downtown of Crested Butte, the street eventually led to Kebler Pass. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew it was the road to take, so up I drove into the mountains toward the 10,007 foot summit.
It was the last week of September, the peak of fall colors. I drove in anticipation knowing the 30-mile scenic route was famous for its vast aspen groves that turn vibrant gold and orange in the autumn. Immediately, the colors began to reveal themselves, and I quickly found an overlook with stunning views. Stopping, I stepped from my SUV breathing deeply, inhaling.
Many years before, I had driven Independence Pass from Leadville to Aspen. I vaguely remembered the narrow road passing over 12,095 feet. But what I did remember was passing through an aspen forest. Perfectly straight, the aspens were tall and narrow creating an image of white lines like a picket fence Tom Sawyer had tricked his friends to paint. The experience created a beautiful memory.
Kebler Pass is one of the most iconic drives in Colorado winding through one of the largest aspen groves in the state. Aspen, a unique tree of the poplar family, produces cloned trees from a single root system forming one large living organism, The trees, interconnected through the one root system, can span an entire mountainside of genetically identical trees.
Because they share a root structure, an entire area reaching up to 100 acres can be from one single aspen organism. This means all of the aspen’s leaves emerge at the same time in spring and in the fall when the leaves turn gold. Thus creating spectacular foliage displays.
As I stood taking in the vision, like the memory of Independence Pass, I was captivated by the spectacular colors offset with white bark tree trunks creating epic mountain views.
I thought of the long history of the area with the trail rooted in Native American Ute history. In the late 19th century with the mining boom, Kebler Pass was the route for the Denver & Rio Grand Railroad with a station at its summit. Once the mining efforts faded, it became the major road connecting Crested Butte and Paonia. As I drove the dirt road, I first stopped to capture an iconic hillside.
The mountainside was layers of yellow and green interspersed with the tall white trunks of the aspen. As the dense aspen forest prevails, the lower branches on the trees do not receive enough sunlight. Thus, as they grow the lower branches fall from the tree, creating tall, narrow slats of thick white crowned with the colors of fall.
At the peak of the image were rocky outcrops of volcanic rock and granite, dynamic against the colors. Among all the colors was a grove of bright red aspen, created by an abundance of water and sugar. As I set my camera to capture the image, the emotions of the beauty were overwhelming, the colors beyond my anticipation.
Once captured, I drove upward along the road toward the pass. Everywhere I looked were the colors of fall. Complementing them were the white bark closer to the ground surrounded by a sea of ferns. It reminded me of the Independence Pass image burned in my memory.
I parked, walking deep into the white forest. Winding my way up the hill, I traversed to the summit where I was alone surrounded by the mystical image of golden top trees and a floor of ferns.
As I stood by myself within the forest, a slight breeze rustled through the treetops. Looking up, the yellow leaves began to rain down upon me. I raised my arms, welcoming the fall of fall, yellow encompassing my view. I was alone in the forest, the leaves a beautiful shower drifting downward onto my hands and shoulders until landing gently on the ferns.
I was standing within the magic of SW Colorado’s amazing fall foliage like an elf in the forest, spinning in my own little dance of joy.
