My Take Tuesday: The Smells of Fall 

There’s a moment each year—usually sometime between the last cutting of hay and the first cold snap—when the air in the Utah mountains changes. You can smell it before you see it. The morning breeze drifts down the canyon with a sharpness that wakes something ancient inside you. It’s the smell of fall—a fragrance made of endings, beginnings, and everything bittersweet in between.

Up high in the aspens, the air carries the dry sweetness of fallen leaves breaking down into the earth. Pine needles release a resinous tang as the sun warms the forest floor, mixing with the faint musk of elk and the spice of distant campfire smoke. There’s sagebrush too—sharp, clean, and almost holy—the scent that has baptized generations of Utahns who call the desert and the mountains home.

But it’s the cottonwood trees in late October that always stop me in my tracks. Their golden leaves shimmer like coins in the sunlight, and the air beneath them carries a smell unlike anything else on earth—a blend of damp bark, sweet decay, and the faint tang of river water. It’s a scent that clings to memory, earthy and honest, reminding me of fence lines along muddy creeks, of cattle moving slowly through the cool morning mist, and of childhood afternoons spent raking leaves only to dive into them moments later. When the wind shakes the last few leaves loose, that smell seems to hang in the air—one last breath of autumn before winter settles in.

Sometimes I’ll take a drive up through the Nebo Loop, windows down, heater on full blast, just to breathe it all in. The wind rushes through the cab, swirling with the smell of cold creek water and dust from the tires on red clay roads. It’s a perfume no store could ever bottle—part nostalgia, part wilderness, and entirely Utah.

In the valley, the scent changes again. Wood smoke rises from chimneys, mingling with the sweetness of fermenting apples and the faint smell of rain-soaked fields. Horses still wear the summer dust on their coats, but even they seem to sense the season turning. It’s as if every living thing holds its breath for a moment, standing still in the golden hush before winter takes the stage.

The smells of fall bring memories I never try to chase away—hunting trips with my father, gathering wood with my brothers, crisp mornings feeding livestock before school. Even now, when I catch a whiff of juniper smoke or wet alfalfa, I’m transported back to those quiet moments of youth when the world felt safe, predictable, and full of promise.

Fall smells different here than anywhere else. Maybe it’s the blend of mountain air and desert sage, or maybe it’s the mixture of memory and gratitude it stirs. Either way, I find myself breathing deeper this time of year—trying to hold on to something that can’t be kept, only appreciated.

Because in Utah, fall doesn’t just smell like change.

It smells like home.

And that is My Take.

N. Isaac Bott, DVM