The Cottonwood Gold

The high desert does its autumn along the water, the cottonwood galleries lining the rivers that meet at Farmington turning a single unanimous gold in late October, ribbons of yellow running through the tan and rust country like drawn lines, and the leaf roads of these pages take their Four Corners form on the river drives and bosque trails, canopy of gold overhead, blue sky beyond it, and the sandstone bluffs supplying the frame no eastern color road offers. The desert turns one color, all at once, and it is worth the trip.

The gold runs wherever the water does, the river trails through town, per Farmington's pieces in these pages, walking and riding for miles beneath the big cottonwoods at full glow, the quality-water stretches of the fishing piece running their green pools under yellow canopy, trout rising through fallen leaves, and the river roads east and west tracing the galleries at windshield pace with the pullouts the season deserves. The ancient great houses of the region's ruins piece stand their sandstone against the river gold for the photographer's pairing the calendar allows only briefly.

The cottonwood weeks arrive late and move fast, the third and fourth October weeks in most years, a hard frost or wind ending the show in days, and the desert's low sun angles, per the badlands piece, doing their finest work at the day's edges, the galleries lit from within at golden hour. The town's base-camp virtues, rooms and tables at working rates, hold per the standing doctrine.

Come the last two weeks of October with a day's flexibility, walk or ride the river trail at both ends of the day, and take one fishing or bosque hour standing under the canopy when the wind moves it, which sounds like water twice. Drive one river road at golden hour. The East's color runs in hills and multitudes, per the rest of these pages, and the desert answers with one tree, one color, one bright line along the water, which turns out to be plenty.