Cottonwood Pass, in October

Cottonwood is the pass I have driven the most often, the one I know the best, and — by a considerable margin — the one I have failed at the most. The road tops out at 12,126 feet, the air is thin enough to slow you down by a third, and the light at the summit is, on most days, unreasonably good.

And yet for thirty-two of my fifty years I made no photograph of Cottonwood that I would defend. The pass is geographically generous and photographically demanding. It gives you everything and then expects you to choose.

The Mount Yale plate from 2023, the one that became the centerpiece of the new book, was made about a mile and a half east of the summit, on a service spur most drivers never notice. The light lasted thirty-eight seconds. I had been visiting the spot for nine autumns. That is, I think, the right ratio.