Barbara Lawlor, Peak to Peak.  The people on the Peak to Peak Highway all turn and look one way. They turn their back on the pavement and the pines and look at the aspen display.

Although some patches have peaked, have shed their leaves which carpet the forest floor, many large stands have just hit their full glory and without a strong wind to spew them about, might last the weekend.

The large stand north of town attracted lines of visitors who pulled out their phones to attempt to capture the golden glow that spread before them. Although it seems that every year looks just like all the years before it, there are notable changes: the ration of red to gold, the intensity of color and the rate of the slow demise of the leaves.

Nederland businesses were slammed. The highway through town was jammed. Long-time residents get annoyed but know that the eye candy hubbub only lasts a few weeks a year. Newcomers are stunned that this small, quiet town they fell in love with has become a metropolis of botanical culture, an aspen art center.

Long-time residents also know that the weeks after peak color are sometimes the most beautiful: when fall colors erupt in the foliage and the ground is pebbled with myriad shades of aspen gold and russet.

This is the best time to hike, when the leaves crunch under your feet and swirl like butterflies in gusts of honey wind; when the copper colors dangle from branches, hover in the air and gather in bunches on ponds and puddles.

It is time to get out the snow tires, split and stack firewood and clean the chimney time of year.

It is amazing how much power one small, heart-shaped, delicately quaking leaf can have on human beings.