A traveling musician performing in Cache Valley in early October had a question for photographer Scott T. Smith: “Why are your foothills pink?”

Smith’s reply: the bigtooth maple. Closely related to New England’s sugar maple, the bigtooth maple is native to Utah. And like its East Coast cousin, its eye-popping fall foliage inspires people to embark on leaf-peeping road trips.

While the bigtooth maple grows all over Utah, it is often interspersed with scrub oak and other vegetation. However, in and around Cache Valley, the oak brush disappears, leaving pure stands of maple. Groves cover the foothills of the Wellsville and Bear River mountains, and they line Logan and Blacksmith Fork canyons, particularly on south-facing slopes.

The timing of the color transition varies and depends on weather conditions, but the maples usually begin to turn in late September, with peak color happening around the first week of October. In some places, the maples are joined by aspens, whose leaves turn colors a few weeks later, making for some overlap in October.

The drive up Logan Canyon on Highway 89 from Cache Valley to Bear Lake is one of the best ways to take in the maples’ fall display. It is not unheard of for people to take their convertibles with the top down, bundling up in winter coats against the autumn chill, to get a better look at the trees, said Patrick Kelly, director of education at the Stokes Nature Center.

“In leaf season, the amount of folks driving up and down Logan Canyon is incredible,” Kelly said. “Sometimes it’s a little frustrating, because people are driving so slowly looking at the leaves. Other times, you’re the one people are frustrated by because you’re driving slowly.”

At the Stokes Nature Center, the official education permittee of the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, Kelly and his team lead guided hikes to fall foliage locations in Logan Canyon. One of the best-loved hikes is the Crimson Trail, which goes along the China Wall – a geological formation in the canyon resembling the Great Wall of China. The trail begins at the Spring Hollow Campground.

Another popular Logan Canyon destination for viewing autumn color is the Wind Caves Trail. The prominent feature on the trail isn’t actually a cave but a unique triple arch.

The bigtooth maple’s similarities to the sugar maple go beyond their dramatic foliage. Like the maples of Vermont, Utah’s maples can be tapped to make maple syrup. However, trees should be about 14 inches in diameter at chest height before they can be safely tapped, and few bigtooth maples grow that large; most are shrubby with multiple smaller trunks rather than one large one.

But bigtooth maples aren’t the only kind of maple native to Utah. Often found nearby are box elder trees, which are a species of maple. Box elders often do grow big enough to tap. This is usually done in late winter, when the sap flows most freely. A lot of sap is needed: It takes 70 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.

The Stokes Nature Center offers classes to teach people how to tap maples and provides the equipment needed to do it. Utah maple syrup has hints of cherry or plum, Kelly said – not quite the pure sugar flavor of East Coast maple syrup, but delicious in its own right.

Researchers at Utah State University are currently studying ways to tap smaller bigtooth maples to make syrup. They expect to have their findings in a few years. In the meantime, Utah’s bigtooth maples remain a feast for the eyes.