It turns out that expecting to see good fall color – even in southwestern Colorado – one-third way into the month of October is pushing it. If you arrive too late like we did, you can settle for the desert instead, where the cottonwoods, scrub oak, and tamarisk are putting on their autumnal display.

In late fall, the desert temperature will be entirely up to you:  The low humidity insures that you'll be too hot in the sun and too cold in the shade. You can pick your preference.

I had downloaded and burned Radiohead's new album In Rainbows around 5 am the morning we were due to leave (mere minutes after it had been released) to take with us on the road. My hiking partner Julie and I had reservations for two nights in the Needles district of Canyonlands, in the heart of Chessler Park, under someone else's name. The anonymity could come in handy, because we were packing 2 liters of French Rabbit wine and fully intended to misbehave.

We were set to find the fabled Virginia Park. This is where the Park Service would prefer you not go: This area looks very much like Chessler Park, but because it is inaccessible to domestic livestock, it hasn't ever been grazed. The grasses there are, apparently, indigenous, and so are of scientific value. Indeed, Virginia Park is pretty much a scientific laboratory. I had to see it.  Armed with waypoints and a couple of gallons of water, we were ready to roll.

If you're into the Canyonlands at all, then you'll find Google Earth to be an invaluable tool. All three of the Canyonlands NP districts are in high-resolution. Trails can be overlayed by showing the right layer (Parks and Recreation » US National Parks » Trails). We think Google should include a warning, though. It's one thing to be sitting in a cushy computer chair, eavesdropping on the Earth, and another to actually be there. The warning might be something along the lines of, "For reference only:  Conditions on the ground may be worse than they appear in Google Earth", etc.

With the status-bar enabled, your cursor can determine a selected waypoint, which will beg to be uploaded to your GPS. At this point, you may decide not to heed the proposed warning, and hit the road. But as we soon discovered, you should actually pay attention to your waypoints to keep from getting lost. This is especially true in the Needle district. And stick with the plan, unless you're interested in evaluating routes that are unlikely to be promising . . . and have enough rope.

Besides the Needles, we also breezed through hikes at Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Hovenweep, and Natural Bridges. It has been a over week now since returning, and I've been going over my 5D shots. I confess to being a little concerned over the cleanliness of the sensor:  My attempts to clean it up before the trip didn't seem very successful. However, the shots – most taken at larger apertures – appear to be free of spots.

And I must say that I'm enjoying the resolution, not just for print work, but for cropping images for the web. For example, here's a crop of a high-resolution shot of Elephant Canyon (I need to mention that the image has been messed with using a Photoshop filter, so it's not the best example):

And so, another high-speed trip to the desert comes to a close. Another futile attempt to prolong the hiking season, with locations teased-out by Google Earth, and fueled by environmentally friendly wine and Peace Cafe pit-stops. I can't wait to do it all again next year!