Wildflowers have been scarce for most of this summer because of a lack of rainfall. The summer rainy season was a bust but September was much wetter. As a result, we had a late–season burst of wildflowers across northern Arizona and Flagstaff. Shorter days and much cooler nights, however, signal the end is near.

Here are a few photographs from this morning (01Oct2025) along the Highland Trail just south of Flagstaff. I was using a recently purchased used-but-new-to me Sony RX10m4 camera. This has a 24mm–600mm (35mm equivalent) zoom and all of these photographs were shot at the maximum 600mm. (Note: I bought this to replace my old Sony RX10 which has an optical issue but cannot be serviced. “Parts not available.”)

And now fall leaf color season begins.