At the turn of the 19th century, gold mining was underway in southern Utah. Prospectors searched for gold deposits along the Colorado and San Juan rivers, as well as up in the mountains. Most were placer mines, sifting through the gravels and sands deposited along streams and rivers in search of the heavier gold minerals that were eroded out of intrusive igneous-related rock formations in the mountains.

Prospectors discovered gold in an area above Pinhook Draw in the La Sal Mountains around 1888, and by 1892 a minor gold rush was happening in the La Sals and Abajos. Lured by the dream of becoming rich, prospectors established a small community called Miners Basin up in the mountains. The “town” bustled with a post office, blacksmith forge, hotel, and two saloons which probably made more money than the miners themselves. However, the “boom” never really materialized and within 20 years most of the miners and those that followed these fortune-seekers moved on to other pastures.

Nowadays, a different type of gold lures explorers up into the mountains in the fall – aspen gold.  

As fall begins to creep down the mountain sides, the aspen and oak begin a transformation from verdant forests to ones cloaked in yellow and dotted with reds, purples, and browns as oaks, aspens, and the leaves of other smaller shrubs and trees begin to senesce.

The process of senescence occurs within the deciduous leaves of these hardwoods and is initiated by less sunlight and cooler temperatures. As the hours of daylight shrink, the chlorophyll pigments within the leaves begin to breakdown, unmasking other pigments and changing the leaf color from green to gold, and sometimes in the case of the aspen tree, a reddish-orange.

The clown white powdery coating on the bark of aspen trees was once thought to be like a thin layer of sunscreen, protecting the tree’s trunk. A study in 2014 in Boulder, CO revealed that the tree sheds these outer cells instead of forming them into a thick bark (trees older than around 30 years do show thickened bark around the base). This is a unique form of bark shedding, but areas where limbs have fallen off or elk have chewed on branches may have thicker bark to protect these wounds.

A thin layer of bark cells, beneath the chalky white ones, can contain photosynthetic pigments which give off a greenish or orangish cast when the white exterior cells are removed. These underlying cells enable the trees to continue to photosynthesize even after the leaves have dropped off. Is this a function to enable this pioneer species to keep pace with a rapid growth and become established before the slower growing conifers invade? Perhaps it is to keep producing the sugars and starches necessary for plant growth in environments that have a short growing season, such as at high elevation? Perhaps these and other reasons yet to be discovered.

No matter the reasons, hiking up through the aspen forests from Warner Lake to Miner’s Basin leads one past the clown-white bark of the aspens and, at times, under a rain of aspen leaves fluttering towards the earth. The trail passes Gold Knob a promontory with exceptional views of the surrounding peaks and the redrock desert below, before heading down to Miner’s Basin and the ruins that remain of this boom-and-bust community where the only gold found is in the aspen leaves fluttering in the breeze.

NOTE: Aspen glyphs, images or names carved into the tree’s trunks, has some historical significance but please refrain from adding initials or images to these trees. Today, this practice is considered vandalism and is illegal on public lands.