My October 2023 Photo of the Month is UT573, taken at the top of Park City, Utah’s Empire Pass.
UT573 Background
I was able to take a badly needed Workcation up in Park City, Utah. The timing when I can attend is often great, since Fall Color in the higher elevations are great from late September to mid-October. I was only there a week, so I couldn’t see everything I wanted to visit, but I focused a lot of time on the higher elevations of Empire and Watchman Passes.
These passes are 9,000 to 10,000 feet in elevation, and feature a wonderful Aspen forest that is a delight to see.
A couple times over the week, some light snowstorms passed over the Wasatch. In a significant storm, the highway would have been closed, and likely closed until late Spring. But in this case, snow accumulation ranged from spotty at 8,500′ to a few inches at 10,000′, allowing good travel up and down the mountain. I also felt a little more confident in my Subaru Forester than the old Escape I owned. I sure wish I could pay off the Subaru, though.
I had other images in mind, but I must confess, I haven’t finished editing those due to power lines. Lightroom’s new Content Aware Fill is great, but it applies this haze doing power lines, and I don’t like the results. So in time, I will get those done and add all images to my Trips Portfolio.
In the meantime, I enjoyed spending a few minutes on top of the pass, cool but not feeling too chilled, watching the lower and upper clouds pass through. The Aspens looked wonderful this year, with a lot of good even color without a big windstorm blowing out all the leaves.
As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the image.
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T.M. Schultze is a San Diego-based photographer, traveller, and writer. He writes, photographs, and draws things of the outdoors that have inspired humans for thousands of years. He co-authored the Photographer’s Guide to Joshua Tree Park which can be purchased here.