Walking in an autumn forest
It doesn't take long to find things worth photographing. If you have the nerve, anyway. Sometimes I don't. After penetrating into the forest for only a few hundred yards I hear a rustle in the trees to my right. Swinging along with my two walking poles, I look over thinking to perhaps surprise a squirrel or grouse. Instead I see a bull moose eying me over his left shoulder. He is nonchalantly chewing up a largish tree, and as I watched stunned he gives another pull on a big branch and bends the whole tree over against him. This is the rustling I'd heard! I consider stopping and digging out my camera, but his rack is as big as my outstretched arms. I decide not to give him any reason to come see what I am up to.
Pictures can't do justice to the experience of the mountain. And when I'm behind the camera, sometimes there won't be pictures because I'm just too busy doing other things.
Like walking.
Rapidly.
Of course I know there are moose on the back of Timpanogos. I've seen them before. And Steve, Marcus and I have encountered them in the winter as far down as the Provo River Parkway below the alpine loop turnoff. But this is the closest I've been to a moose; closer even than the time Steve and I surprised a young bull moose as we came down from 'Y' mountain after a long ramble through a couple of canyons. Believe me, the closer you get to these magnificent animals, the more awe-inspiring they become.
After a quarter mile or so I slow down and quit listening for the sound of hooves on the trail behind me. Logically I know that any animal foraging that far down in the canyon must have frequent encounters with humans, so if he was aggressive he'd have already been rounded up and moved. Still, unexpectedly eyeballing an animal from about ten feet whose back is as high as your head is quite a feeling.
By the time I slow down I'm on the paved portion of the trail. It is a perfect time of year to be on the mountain. Everywhere are leaves glowing with autumn colors. Some of the aspens are beginning to turn, while others have not yet started to go gold. I can no longer taste the distant fire; I can't tell if the air is really untainted or if I've just grown used to the smell on my trip up the canyon.