On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
BillinGlendaleCA
The appearance of fall color here in California migrates from the north and higher elevations of the state to the south and lower elevations. So in late October, the trees in the mountain valleys of Southern California begin to turn. I headed to Oak Glen which has a nature preserve run by the Wildlands Conservancy, the same folk who run the Whitewater Preserve that I visited earlier in the year.
It’s an old apple orchard that the Conservancy bought and turned into a park. The park has some nice trails that follow the creek that runs though the park and also into the mountains south of the park. You may remember Oak Glen from the news in late 2020 due to a fire that raced though the are begun by morons setting off fireworks for a gender reveal party in a local state park.
Arriving at the parking lot, this tree’s fiery color was lit by the Sun.
The southernmost picnic area displays some fine color.
This grassy area above the picnic area is dotted with trees.
As the trail heads up the mountain south of the park, a nice overview of the valley with it’s fall color presents itself with the fire ravaged mountains to the north of the valley.
The hill trail also provides some nice vistas of the Inland Empire to the south.
Back in the valley along the creek, there are some boardwalks that snake though the changing vegetation.
Towards the end of the trail there’s a lake surrounded by trees changing green to yellow.
On the road leaving the park, there’s an old stone schoolhouse.
The War For Ukraine Update 7: Russia Increases Its Attack Tempo
sab
What a pleasant change from looking at the gray skies and icicles hanging from bare trees outside my windows.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@sab: Happy to help, though the prediction is for grey skies here in Southern CA towards the later part of the week and rumors of the “R” word.
Baud
Lovely looking weather. Really brings out the scenery.
sab
I love the arching trees in the third photo, and the trees above the v point of water in the second to last one.
I.e. I like the compositions a lot. The glorious colors speak for themselves.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: The Sun really does bring out the color, but I’d like to have a few clouds to give the sky a bit more drama.
sab
@?BillinGlendaleCA: So we have dramatic skies in Ohio (all cloudy most of the time.)
// I know what you mean…contrast.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@sab: I had to keep on moving back to get the second photo, the one of the lake is taken on a boardwalk over one edge of the lake.
Unrelated…I got a new cellphone on Friday, the S22 Ultra. I’ve taken a few test shots and it’s quite impressive, though I’ve not been able to get out much since I’ve worked every day since I got it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@sab: Yeah, a few nice puffy clouds.
Rusty
The first picture is a reminder why I love autumn in the northeast, particularly upstate NY and New England. Everywhere you look is stunning color in the fall. Thank you for sharing such equally beautiful colors from the left coast.
Mary G
Boardwalks! So great for disabled people like me. We are usually reduced to looking longingly at the trail head.
The photos are A+××× from colors to composition and of course California our Golden State. I think my mom and dad took me to another area apple place where we bought apples, pies, and juice/cider, which were all a revelation for a kid raised on the damaged goods shelf at Albertson’sm
JPL
The photos are beautiful, and what a lovely place for a picnic.
It’s spring here and the buds are starting to come out on the maples.
Mary G
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I was so in love with these shots I started to ask if you got them with your new camera. Then I deleted it, unless you’ve learned time travel.
Pete Mack
Nice pics. I get red maples in the Adirondacks, which make for spectacular views. On a sunny day in peak season, there are a quarter mile of cars parked to go up Snowy Mountain, and my favorite–Chimney Mountain, gets a couple hundred people.
My favorite part, though is three or four weeks later when the crowds are gone, and the beech leaves change. A beech forest when it is yellow is just an otherworldly place. It is supposedly the inspiration of Tolkien’s Mallorn trees: silver bark, and golden leaves.
sab
@Mary G: Yes. I used to be young and nimble. Now I think I am until the heart says naw, my ticking sucks. Limits me a lot with the new pitbull. We can’t hike that very uphill trail because I might keel over. Pitbull is also old, so same risks but she isn’t aware of them.I assume you have the same restictions but more severe.
My local metroparks have been having this same discussion for decades. The kids want to be challenged physically. The olds want access, and are not about to vote for park bond levies where they are closed out.
In the course of time I have moved from one side to the other. Young and frisky to old and arthritic.
That is the point. Find a common ground.
Benw
Nice
Steve in the ATL
These are fantastic
TS (the original)
Amazing wonderful photographs. Those of us who live in a land of mainly evergreen trees do not see these colors in our lives very often & given that we are currently in the midst of turbulent floods and still high covid numbers the pictures provide a little calm during an otherwise uneasy time.
Grumpy Old Railroader
Beautiful
J R in WV
Great photos, a shame the vast majority of trees out west turn yellow, as the wide variety of colors here in the east is astounding.
Once some years ago Wife and I were traveling to visit some of the wide variety of Indian Mounds in the greater Ohio River Valley, and I was in a short line to check in to a motel. The folks ahead of me were not familiar with the color changes in the east and were concerned that while they drove north from S Ohio they might miss the color change.
I tried to explain that they couldn’t miss the color, as they were traveling north, while the colors changing would be traveling south, they were bound to overlap at some point on their road trip. Seemed pretty cut and dried to me, but they really didn’t pick up on it at all, and walked away all upset that their concern wasn’t taken seriously.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Rusty: We don’t get fall color all over our landscape that you might see in the east and the Rockies since we have a lot of evergreen trees in our mountains. But the valleys do have trees that will turn in the fall.
@Mary G: I’ve seen quite a few nature trails on my travels the past year that are ADA compliant(Convict Lake) and boardwalks(Mono Lake).
@JPL: Both Oak Glen and Whitewater would be great places for picnics.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G: Obama wouldn’t loan me his time machine. Since I got the new phone on Friday, I’ve had to work every day, so I’ve not had time to get out and try it out much. I actually get Friday and Saturday off, but It looks like we may get rain(we do badly need the rain).
@Pete Mack: About 2 weeks ago, I hiked down a canyon that ends at the coast, I’m thinking of doing that in the late Fall. It’s called Big Sycamore Canyon, so it should have some good fall color.
@sab: I think California does a pretty good job providing some trails that are ADA compliant and nature trails that might not be ADA compliant but are short and pretty level.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Benw: Glad you like’m.
@Steve in the ATL: Thanks.
@TS (the original): Most of the trees on the hillsides here are evergreen, but the valleys have a bit more variety.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Grumpy Old Railroader: Thanks much.
@J R in WV: We don’t have as many native trees that produce the reds, but we do get some nice orange leaves in the fall. One thing we do get here is a long Fall, so from mid September to Christmas.
BigJimSlade
Very nice!
We have a creek nearby (Pacific Palisades) and there are a few maple trees along it. Whenever we walk by and they’ve changed color I always think, “hey, look! We have fall!”
?BillinGlendaleCA
@BigJimSlade: Considering how late leaves turn down here in the basin, it’s more like “it’s winter!”.