Greer Meadow and the Little Colorado River

Author's Comments

Greer is the kind of place I almost did not write about, because it does not announce itself. You drive in and the meadow opens and the river is just there, threading through the grass at the bottom of a wide bowl of forest. At 8,356 feet the air is thinner and the light has that high-country clarity that rewards anyone willing to be out at the right hour. The right hour, in my experience, is the last forty minutes before sunset in late September. The aspens along the river corridor go gold in patches rather than walls, which I actually prefer. It gives the eye something to travel toward. The elk are the other reason to come. They move into the meadow in the cool of evening, and if you have driven slowly through the village and parked yourself somewhere unobtrusive, you can watch a herd of forty come down to the water without anyone else around. I have made portraits here with a long lens that I am genuinely proud of, and wide landscapes that hold the whole scene at once - meadow, river bend, aspen stand, dark wall of conifer behind. Both are available on the same evening if the light cooperates. This is not a famous place. The crowds are thin even in peak fall. That is part of what it offers, and part of why I keep the directions a little vague when people ask. Come in the last week of September. Stay through golden hour and then a little longer, into the blue minutes when the meadow goes cold and the elk become silhouettes. That is the photograph.

Gallery