It’s that time of year in the northern Rockies as aspens and cottonwoods are beginning to reach peak autumn color. It’s been incredibly smoky over the past week or so which means sweeping wide angle photos don’t work well. But more intimate close ups like this tend to work nicely. Rain and cool weather came through yesterday so hopefully that will clear out the smoke and push the trees into peak color. Right now there’s a good mix of green, gold, and brown. We had a hard freeze a few weeks ago, so some trees went straight to brown while others are still green. The peak color only lasts a short time, so hopefully the weather will cooperate.