FALL

Fall has a flavor. It is acidic from dropped leaves and clean like sunshine. The wild maple in the canyons turns purple. Cottonwoods go to gold. Aspens burst into dragon treasure. In some places, like the red stone parapets of the northern desert, the color seems not to change as much. Look closer. The sun has lowered its angle, and the red of the stone has turned into a shade of bronze. Monuments cast long shadows. The light is not the same.

The air feels like a cloud has moved over the sun. It's a change that makes you look up. This is when the elk bugles in the meadow, as if playing some arcane musical instrument. Toads dig their way back down to wait for summer rains, whenever they might come next. Nights let go of summer's tension, and in the high country you'll want a jacket in September, a warm hat in October, gloves in November. The North Rim of the Grand Canyon closes down as the color comes off the aspens and falls to the ground.

Indoors, air conditioning hasn't changed temperature. Going to the store is still like walking into a freezer, and it will be this way all year. We try to even out irregularities and find a climate we can all agree on, while the outside keeps to its yearly cycles.

Days shorten, and they also pick up speed, as if racing toward winter. You can read the change from week to week, and day to day, as midday shadows lengthen and it feels like time is moving differently. Some say this is a wistful time of year, but it is also reverberant. If I had my druthers, this is the one season I would happily have go on for another few months. It feels like the culmination, the last breath before a dive, before the year starts again. If you've been barefoot for a long while, you go for socks. You can't keep behaving the same way. The seasons make you turn, as if taking you by the face and saying, Now, look this way, see what else I've made.

Maple leaves in autumn dress surround the mottled bark of an Arizona sycamore (Platanus wrightii) in Garden Canyon, part of the Huachuca Mountains. In this Southern Arizona range, fall color usually peaks in late October or early November.

Saguaro-lined cliffs cradle an area of riparian vegetation in Redfield Canyon, a remote, narrow canyon in Southeastern Arizona. The canyon is protected by a 6,600-acre wilderness area managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management.

PRECEDING PANEL:

Autumn colors punctuate a longexposure view of flowing spring water in the West Clear Creek Wilderness, part of the Coconino National Forest. This long, narrow wilderness area protects a pristine waterway that draws backcountry hikers and swimmers.

CANON EOS 6D, 1.6 SEC, F/16, ISO 160, 24 MM LENS

SUZANNE MATHIA

CANON EOS-1DS MARK III, 1/13 SEC, F/11, ISO 100, 100 MM LENS

BYRON NESLEN

CANON EOS 5DS R, 1/4 SEC, F/22, ISO 100, 20 MM LENS

JACK DYKINGA

Arizona sycamore leaves, well known for their large size, collect between the leaves of an agave growing on a volcanic boulder in the Chiricahua Mountains of Southeastern Arizona. This particular scene is in Cave Creek Canyon, on the northeast side of the range.

ARCA-SWISS F-FIELD, FUJICHROME VELVIA, 4 SEC, F/32, ISO 50, 80 MM LENS

LAURENCE PARENT LAURENCE PARENT

Maples, aspens and other deciduous trees celebrate fall at Upper Ash Spring in the Galiuro Mountains, northeast of Tucson. One of Arizona's most remote mountain ranges, the Galiuros are known for a shootout that occurred at the Power family's cabin in 1918.

LAURENCE PARENT

JEFF MALTZMAN JEFF MALTZMAN

PAUL GILL

Cottonwoods show off their autumn leaves at the bottom of Canyon de Chelly National Monument, a Navajo Nation landmark. The monument, jointly managed by the tribe and the National Park Service, is near the town of Chinle.

LAURENCE PARENT

Fallen aspen leaves in the San Francisco Peaks rest on a bed of fresh snow. Arizona Snowbowl, a ski resort in the Peaks, sees nearly 22 feet of snow per year, on average.

SONY ALPHA 7R II, 1/4 SEC, F/18, ISO 100, 70 MM LENS

LAURENCE PARENT

A frigid late-autumn scene along the Abineau-Bear Jaw Loop, in the San Francisco Peaks, includes snow-covered evergreens and golden aspen leaves. According to the Coconino National Forest, the loop is known for being colorful year-round.

FOR YOUR GLOVE COMPARTMENT

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