I was 46 years old when I went on my first true hike on a trail in the Rocky Mountains and little by little, I began to learn all about hiking, took on longer and more aggressive trails, and grow my collection of great gear to support my new and healthy addiction. I have hiked up over 15 14-ers (again a topic for another podcast), completed numerous EPIC hikes and now lead hiking groups.
The past few weekends I have been reveling in the change of seasons in my Colorado hometown. I experienced Fall or Autum as a kiddo in Ohio and the Midwest, and again while in college in Nashville, but I spent more time in Florida, South Carolina and Texas and the changing of the leaves while pretty, were short lived and not always spectacular.
I feel so fortunate that I found this new activity and literally this whole new world of trails in the mountains over the past 10 years and that I have soooo many more to explore. Each season brings unique beauty, like the Winter snow hikes with tons of fluffy white snow against bright blue skies, the gorgeous green colors and the creeks and rivers flowing fast in the Spring, & the sea of wildflowers in Summer. All are wonderful.
But there is this whole other world that happens in late September and early October that changes all the greens to the most amazing mixture of yellows, oranges and reds along the mountain trails. The Fall is incredible. The air is crisp and I have to bring additional clothing layers, but I don’t mind. The weather cooling is usually a nice break from the summer heat and the changing colors makes me walk much slower along the hiking trail to take a gazillion photographs of the splendor.
If you haven’t yet experienced this feeling of walking on a wooded or mountain trail in the incredible tapestry of Fall colors, I hope you’ll consider penciling this in your calendar next year.
I have resources and recommendations available on my destinationu.net website that can help give you great places to check out, hiking trail ideas and links in my store for great gear to bring along, including free hiking checklists to download.
I have much more detailed recommendations on How to Take Your Epic Hike in my private community called Inspiring Your Next. I have a video version of this podcast on my YouTube Channel, with images of some of the most amazing Fall colors and I invite you to check them all out.
I hope you take the time now (or plan for next year) and immerse yourself in a wonderful time of year, in beautiful fall colors and a sweet time of change.
Thanks for listening and will see you on the trails!