West Fork Trail at Oak Creek

Author's Comments

October is the month, and the third week is usually the moment, though the canyon does not always agree with the calendar. I have arrived a week too early and watched the cottonwoods just beginning to turn at the upper crossings, and I have arrived a week too late and found the leaves already on the water. When the timing lands, the canyon does something I have not quite seen anywhere else in Arizona. The yellows of the maples and cottonwoods catch against red sandstone and the contrast is almost too much, almost gaudy, and then a cloud passes and it settles into something quieter and more painterly. The light here is a negotiation. The walls rise close on both sides and the sun does not reach the canyon floor until well into the morning, which means the first hour or two of usable light is reflected light, bouncing down from the upper walls into the creek below. That is the photograph I keep working toward. The water goes warm where it catches the glow off the sandstone and stays cool in the shadowed pools, and a long exposure of thirty seconds or so will pull both temperatures into the same frame in a way the eye does not quite see in real time. Get to Call of the Canyon before the gate opens if you can. The lot fills by nine on October weekends and the trail experience changes completely once it does. Waterproof boots, a tripod low enough to sit just above the water, and a polarizer that you are willing to dial back rather than crank all the way. The reflections are the picture. Do not kill them.

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