The beauty of autumn in southern Utah

Pssst. Want to know a secret?

Southern Utah, that geologic and scenic wonderland, is dazzling in every season — but in autumn the annual invasion of sightseeing visitors from around the world drops to a trickle.

As desk manager Ron Stensfors notes from behind the service counter at Zion Lodge, seasoned (so to speak) American travelers, especially savvy locals from Utah and the rest of the West, know fall is a great time to take in Zion National Park.

And that's equally true for Utah's four other national parks (Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef and Bryce Canyon), national monuments (Grand Staircase-Escalante, Natural Bridges, etc.) and the autumn-tinged highlands, canyons and pioneer communities all around them.

"Southern Utah," says Riley Mitchell, chief of interpretation at Capitol Reef National Park, "is often synonymous with red rock, but if you are lucky enough to encounter the areas along streambeds or the higher elevations during a good spring or fall season, the variety of colors can be amazing, especially against the backdrop of the dramatic sandstone landscape."

"Color, history, solitude, beauty — it all converges on an autumn day in canyonland," Ben Guterson observes in his pleasurable book, "Seasonal Guide to the Natural Year," which spotlights "natural events" in Utah and the other states of the Four Corners region.

Autumn usually gains a foothold in mid-September in places like the Tushar Mountains, above Beaver and Junction, and the LaSal and Abajo mountains, looming over southeastern Utah.

Golden aspen groves blanket entire mountainsides. Intermittent storms — as has been the case this year — bring early snows that frost peaks towering more than 12,000 feet above sea level and add yet another transitional, pre-winter, flavor to the landscapes just below.

Utah's famed "Highway 12" — the awe-inspiring National Scenic Byway between Red Canyon near Bryce Canyon National Park and Torrey, Capitol Reef's gateway — is a much-recommended drive. The rise over Boulder Mountain, in particular, is "really terrific in autumn," Joe Bensen writes in his Falcon Guide, "Scenic Driving in Utah" — with Bensen emphasizing "terrific" in italics.

Then, by mid- to late October and into November — depending upon where you are — the lower-elevation Colorado Plateau canyons are speckled and streaked with dazzling variations on red and yellow and orange as presented by the scrub oak, willow, ash, alder, box elder and cottonwood trees.