I ’ve often said there’s no finer time to be in Colorado’s high country than early autumn, but then I usually say that in September when the boys and I are prowling golden quakie groves with bows and arrows in our hands, packs on our backs and elk on our minds.

I can’t help it; I get hopelessly caught up in the season — the lingering scent of evening campfires in the crisp autumn air, the dripping-dark pungency of a spruce forest at dawn, the gut-busting hike to a tundra meadow awash in frosted wildflowers, the ringing of elk music in our ears and the dream of making winter meat with little more than a pointy stick, hard work and our own hands. It’s an intensely gratifying, almost overwhelming sensory experience.

But then, in contrast, a soft summer day spent stalking brook trout on an alpine creek near timberline can be every bit as rewarding. The high meadows are lush now, vibrant with the color of mountain bluebells, verdant grasses, columbine, Indian paintbrush, bladderwort, globe lily and a catalog of blossoms only a naturalist could name for you.

A fly rod, a fanny pack and a thousand nameless creeks; brook trout sizzling in an iron skillet blackened by time and wood smoke; the warning whistle of a marmot from a rocky cairn; the cerulean intensity of sunrise at 9,000 feet; the indignant strut of a blue grouse interrupted at his hopper chasing; the musty bouquet of a tent pitched hard by a willow-choked stream, sprouting marsh marigolds in the sunlit pockets of receding snowbanks — they all beckon. Hence, the marvel of July.
Last July, my boy and I turned off the Poudre County highway onto a gravel two-track that eventually dead-ended in an alpine meadow next to a nameless creek where we made camp. Each morning, we traveled a network of forest service roads and then bushwhacked cross- country to hidden streams revealed only by our topography maps. Some held water, some held water and trout, but all were in incredibly beautiful alpine country.
We caught brook trout, flushed blue grouse, spied deer and elk tracks in the bankside mud and wondered ahead to September. Maybe we should come back here in the bow season and hunt elk from the same camp. That way, we could enjoy the best of both months — July and September. Brookies and elk. We’re still giving it some thought.