West Fork Oak Creek 11-2024

One of my favorite places to go for color in the fall is the West Fork of Oak Creek north of Sedona...It has become one of the most popular hikes in Arizona...the trail follows a creek that flows through a narrow canyon...the color comes mostly from the Maples, Oaks, and Sycamores...the Maples can have deep red, gold and yellow colors...The oaks are golden and the sycamores are yellow...a hiker told me I was a week late for peak color but I still found lots of pockets of good trees and the ground in many places was covered in leaves...sometimes I would get as close to the tree as possible, hold the camera out in front of me facing toward the sky and just push the exposure button with my thumb...the trail crosses the shallow creek a number of times and I always look for leaves that are floating on the water...if you look closely in some of the ground leaf photos, you can see white snow pellets...