I love this area in Alpine. It's the loop drive that is near the TH for Escudilla mountain. You can stop and walk around in the forrest or in a huge open meadow. You could spend a whole day just walking around this area. We came here last in October of 2005 when the leaves were changing.

This area is a great summer place to super-saturate your retinas with all the subtle light and dark greens. You accept palo verde green as your standard green when you live in the desert, but I need to see those deep, dark variations of green every once in a while. Fir, spruce, aspen, pine -- yummy greens.

I took some comparison photos in the exact same spots as '05: fun to flip between solid green of August vs. patchwork yellow of October.