The first gold coin in the aspens usually appears in August. This is Colorado, later than Montana, earlier than New Mexico. In high summer, in the vegetable clouds of a hundred million heart-shaped leaves, one branch will mark the change.
Each mountain range has its own calendar, which is different year to year. The one I know, the San Juan Mountains, mostly in Southwest Colorado, shows first in August. After that, not much else happens for another month or more. A switch went off early, a small pack of leaves taking the cannonball plunge.
Colorado has the highest average elevation in the Lower 48, much of it in the Goldilocks zone for aspen growth. The largest range in the state is the San Juans, with about two hundred sixty peaks over thirteen thousand feet in elevation, leaving a lot of room for color in the skirts below.
Down in the valleys and canyon bottoms, big, booming cottonwood trees—closely related to higher-elevation and more soft-spoken aspens—start throwing
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