We turned off the high-speed pace of U.S. 6 east of Spanish Fork onto a winding canyon road. As if on cue, a pair of cowboys on horseback rode through the grasses in the bottomlands below. Above us, a big autumn sky filled with puffy clouds set against azure blue.

Most of us have sped past this side road on our way to Moab. Today, though, we slowed down to explore Diamond Fork Canyon, where the river twists its way into the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest.

The first miles carved through a broad valley in the southern Wasatch Range. Hillsides here were scorched during the 2018 Pole Creek Fire, but they are alive again seven years later with new growth. Rusty-bronze gambel oak dominated the slopes, punctuated by the occasional yellow burst of box elder and a splash of red from bigtooth

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