So you left Utah?

October 5, 2005 9:08 AM

If you are going to Fall, well this is the place... I started visiting the orchards and farms of northern Utah a few years ago, to take my Dad out for drives, and to take pictures. I met many farmers up there, and came to love the front of Willard Peak, and the amazing canyons, water drainage, warm western rocky slopes; that make the best peaches anywhere. Perry, Utah has a mountain behind it, that is a sight to behold, and to the West is the National Migratory Bird Refuge. Shane Whitlock has covered this area pretty well, he is an enthusiastic photographer and chronicles the small town of Perry, the rodeos, the birds, the animals and the great fortune of small town existence.Here is my Dad's best friend's, barn. Mantua, Utah. Usually, the Utah "outsiders" see, is the red rock canyons of the southern part of the state. Northern Utah with the Great Salt Lake, and the Wasatch and Uinta mountain ranges is continuously elegant season to season, and peopled with all kinds of wonderful, tame and wild life.
posted by Oyéah (20 comments total)

I'm not sure I understand this post. Is it to link to Shane's photos at a photosharing site?
posted by OmieWise at 9:35 AM on October 5, 2005

Rereading that, it sounds dickier than I meant it to. They're very nice photos, for what they are, I was just wondering if there was more to it than that.
posted by OmieWise at 9:36 AM on October 5, 2005

Don't worry. Pretty soon your fellow Americans will discover its heart-rending beauty. Within a decade it'll be strip malls, tract housing and surban squalour just like everywhere else.
posted by rhymer at 9:39 AM on October 5, 2005

Will Shane be sending me a bottle of wine for all the free advertising?
posted by docpops at 9:43 AM on October 5, 2005

Utah expat. here, escaped when I was 5. Utah is a damn fine state, as far as the nature goes.

The culture, while generally friendly, is not in tune with my view of the world. I love my family that lives there very much, all the same. We used to vacation every summer in the Uintas, driving there from our home in Colorado (a 10 hour trip by car that I always found so boring). Amazing places.

And this does just seem to me a short essay with links to a photo gallery of a guy named Shane Whitlock.
posted by teece at 9:46 AM on October 5, 2005

How do I Fall with a capital F, and is it different from falling with a lowercase f?
posted by alumshubby at 10:22 AM on October 5, 2005

I believe Fall with at capital "F" refers to a the process of going somewhere during the Fall season and looking at the leaves. It's like Summering in the Hamptons or something. (That's the first time I have heard of it, too).
posted by dios at 10:31 AM on October 5, 2005

Northern Utah expat (Ogden, near that Willard Peak), escaped when I was 17. Utah is a damn fine state as far as the nature goes, yes indeed. Damned if I could ever spend more than a week at a stretch there again. It has obvious cultural issues that keep a lot of industries from doing well there, because they can't bring in the kind of people they need. Its fledgling software industry, for instance, is suffering from a lack of tolerance of people who aren't white.

So, maybe it will really be an area that retains its beauty for some time yet, simply because most of us couldn't stand to live there.
posted by gurple at 10:31 AM on October 5, 2005

If you are going to Fall, well this is the place...

Ha, I just picked up on that. "This is the place" indeed!
posted by gurple at 10:41 AM on October 5, 2005

If you are looking to fall in the New York City/ L.I. area, check out Welwyn Preserve, (sorry no pictures).
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:55 AM on October 5, 2005

I'm a Utah escapee also, escaped when I was 18 to Portland Oregon. I would have to agree with my fellow escapee's that the nature is nice, but the people have social issues. It was refreshing to join the real world when I moved out, the culture of Utah is unreal, and unsympathetic to humankind. I could spend months typing up things about what is wrong with the place, but I will leave it at this, if you really care about someone, don't let them live there. It takes both hands to count the number of friends I have that stayed that have commited suicide since adulthood in that place.
posted by blackankh at 11:38 AM on October 5, 2005

I'd never viewed bigotry as a conservation tool before.
posted by rhymer at 11:44 AM on October 5, 2005

In another post about phantom signs, there were a couple of Utah ex-pats. I had just looked at these photos. This state is extra beautiful this season, since we somewhat have stepped out of a lengthy drought, and the leaves have a lot of sugar to make colors with.

I work to keep Utah's agricultural lands, in agriculture rather than tract homes, and the farmers up here struggle to get progeny interested in farming. I have interviewed many people in this area regarding these matters. I posted someone elses pics of the area, rather than my own.

Interesting however, I see a lot of photo sites on this very Metafilter, no one asks obtuse questions as to why they are here. This site is refreshing to me, because I know the photographer is a professional, and serves a very small community, in a world class fashion. What a great mirror he offers them of their culture and surrounds.

I decided long ago, there was no need to escape Utah, since wild Utah so stirs my psyche. The rest of Utah stays in proper perspective...it's a Zen thing.
posted by Oyéah at 12:04 PM on October 5, 2005

I prefer The Fall.
posted by bardic at 12:26 PM on October 5, 2005

Oyéah writes "Interesting however, I see a lot of photo sites on this very Metafilter, no one asks obtuse questions as to why they are here."

Maybe the FPPs are better constructed? I clicked through on the first link, and saw one photograph. I followed the others and saw that as well. Most of the FPPs about professional photographers are centered around them and their work, which tends to speak for itself.
posted by OmieWise at 12:32 PM on October 5, 2005

I decided long ago, there was no need to escape Utah, since wild Utah so stirs my psyche.

The beauty of Utah can certainly do that. It's an astoundingly beautiful place. Many folks don't seem to realize that the north is just as pretty as the south, in a different way, so for that this FPP is worth it to me.
posted by teece at 12:54 PM on October 5, 2005

This post is making me homesick. (I'm a Bountiful-area native living in New York City and missing the mountains.) Antelope Island is another scenic spot in Northern Utah, probably my favorite place on Earth.
posted by aparrish at 2:03 PM on October 5, 2005

This post would make sense if you live in a Western state without much water or hardwood trees and 4 seasons where you can see fall by traveling to the right altitudes, unlike east of the Mississippi where we live in the worlds largest temperate rain forest and leaves turning colour are about as common as to be invisible. Unless you live in MD, where we are having a drought and the leaves go from green to black and fall off.
posted by stbalbach at 3:21 PM on October 5, 2005

"...a decade it'll be strip malls, tract housing and surban squalour just like everywhere else."

Too late. From North Ogden southward to Provo/American Fork that's pretty much what it is. You really have to get out of the Wasatch Front to appreciate Utah's natural beauty (and in the winter, you pretty much have to get out of the Wasatch Front just to see blue sky, thanks to all the smog inversions).
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:24 PM on October 5, 2005

That's so weird, I just got back from a Utah vacation last night.
posted by fletchmuy at 2:35 PM on October 6, 2005