Once again, I expected the rain and wind the past week to strip off all the colourful leaves from the trees.

Once again, I was delightfully wrong.

Yes, there were lots of stands of naked, grey aspens. And others with just feeble reminders of what they were a week or two ago. But there were also enough to brighten the journey.

Too bad the plane was shaking too hard for most of my pictures. Lots and lots of blurs. That's what happens when you fly in the afternoon, instead of the calmer mornings.

You should see my hand-written flight notes. (And maybe you will...)

On the elk...

Found all ten again, no thanks to the elk. Two of the five northern animals had boogied. One to the south country, where the elk hunting season is not yet open (Saturday), the other to a ranch where hunter access is severely limited (unless, of course, you're willing to spend lots of money, in which case access is wide open). Her signal threw us off for quite a while, with an extra "thrum-thum" in her pulses. Finally found her close to ten miles away, in a canyon. My best guess is her radio signal was echoing off the canyon walls.

But I suspect I might leave the country, too, if there were people running around shooting at me for the past three days.