Dazzling yellows of South Dakota

Calendars and catalogs tell us that fall color is best served as an array. It is red, orange, yellow and every burnt shade between. Fall colors are so broad and brilliant that the English language can't keep up to name them all.

In the Black Hills of South Dakota, however, fall presents itself in one primary shade: yellow. But within that yellow are many yellows: canary, school bus, lemon peel, banana peel, daisy, mustard and maybe even Big Bird. There is orangey-yellow, reddish-yellow and lime-green-yellow.

Rather than bowl you over, the yellows tickle you like a feather -- a subtle, luminous feather always peeking out from the next piney turn in the road or dark, craggy canyon. When backlit by a warm afternoon sun, look out. Those yellows turn electric.

The eastern side of South Dakota is the flat, humid edge of the Midwest. The Black Hills are the edge of the West: bright, vertical and awash in vigorous mountain air. It is a hard and beautiful land, and the hardness not only makes the yellows dazzle, it makes them dazzle differently than they would, say, on a New England country road clogged with thick sweaters and mugs of cider.

Western fall color, which usually peaks here in early October, offers little cider. It is hiking boots and fly-fishing, buffalo burgers and Indian tacos, vertical rock and sparse population. It is the perfect time to visit this legendary landscape; the summer's 90-degree days have fled, and so have the tourists that turn small towns into traffic calamities.

And then there are the yellows.

In pursuit

Up I went, climbing past towering rocks that reached from the earth like giant fingers and the dense pools of yellow. The occasional tourist paused on the edge of the trail to photograph that color below, usually tall, thin aspen and birch trees. Halfway up, I passed a couple. I asked about the view ahead.

"Marvelous," the man said. "Glorious colors. And there are two seminude women just ahead of you. So it'll be a good view for sure."

That got the lead out. In 40 minutes I was at the top with three Germans and two young American women.

"Were you two seminude?" I asked the Americans. "I passed a guy on the trail who said there were two seminude women ahead."

"I had my tank top halfway up," one said. "That's about it."

And in the Black Hills, the way to find it is by car. I buzzed on to Palmer Creek Road, south of Hill City, which I never would have known to look for without the advice of a local. It's a dirt road that would be easy to miss, hugged by aspens whose leaves were somewhere between yellow-green and yellow-yellow. I didn't pass another car there.

Winding curves -- and color

I spent much of the next couple of days like that. I would wake early to explore every wrinkle of the Black Hills I could by daylight, gliding slowly across the scenic roads: Vanocker Canyon Road, Needles Highway, Iron Mountain Road and Spearfish Canyon, where the sherbetlike yellows leapt out from the evergreens. The best part: All are within about 100 miles of one another.

There was a simple joy in taking the drives and winding curves at speeds you'd never go when trying to get somewhere. Amid the color, clean air and elbowroom, you're constantly where you're trying to be.

The way to make the drives last longer, of course, is to stop often, and it was during one of those stops that I met Gary Steinley, a trim 70-year-old standing above a pond in Spearfish Canyon, painting the autumn landscape.

I asked if he missed fall's other colors.

"Not in the least," Steinley said. "Someone spoiled by Eastern falls and those brilliant colors might not think this is as picturesque as that. They'd sure be missing something, though."

He paused.

"Actually, later in the fall, the poison ivy turns red."