Aspen and Douglas fir at DeMotte Campground, Kaibab Plateau, Arizona.
This fall may have been a bust for me, but I've had the great privilege of experiencing a long lifetime of beautiful autumns.
In early September, 2018, we hitched our small (22-ft.) travel trailer to our old Chevy 1500 pickup and headed northwest.
After traveling extensively through South Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah, we arrived on September 26 at DeMotte Campground, a National Forest Service facility about seven miles from the entrance to the Grand Canyon National Park's North Rim. (It's about 20 miles further to the Visitor's Center at the North Rim.)
The campground is in a beautiful location at an altitude of 8,800 feet on Arizona's Kaibab Plateau, a large and high plateau (up to 9,200 feet) which forms the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, which, by the way, is 2,000 feet higher than the South Rim. Set in a forest of aspen and Douglas fir, the campground has no hookups for RVs, but at $10 per night, the price is right. We soon had our trailer parked and set off for the canyon.
We woke the next morning to bright sunshine and a crisp, 25-degree temperature -- a fine, late-September morning at 8,800 feet of altitude. The air was sparkling clear and it didn't feel anything like that cold as I went out to make some photographs of the aspen and Douglas fir that framed our campground.
Inspired by the gold of the aspen, the deep green of the fir, and the intense blue of the sky, I carried my Minolta Autocord twin-lens reflex camera loaded with Fujichrome RDPII 100 film. I love the clean look of the pictures it gave and the ease of composing in the square format.
We had planned to go back to the North Rim this morning, but decided there was really nothing else for us to see unless we wanted to hike, which we didn't. The haze in the canyon from distant forest fires also dampened our enthusiasm. We hope to come back when conditions are more favorable. So we took our pictures of the aspen and fir, hooked up our trailer, and hit the road to new adventures.
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Photography and text copyright 2023 David B.Jenkins.
I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.
So good to still read of your many adventures and taking the wonderful photos you are still doing...And to boot...you are quite a beautifully descriptive writer! fleta
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Fleta. Who'da thunk it when we were just college kids!
ReplyDeleteNicest compliment I've had in quite a while!
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