When is peak fall color at Petrified Forest National Park?

Our forecast puts peak color at Petrified Forest National Park around 21 Oct. The four days to aim for are 20 to 23 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Petrified Forest National Park Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Petrified Forest National Park?

Quaking Aspen, Bigtooth Maple, Gambel Oak, Arizona Sycamore, Fremont Cottonwood. Aspens on the San Francisco Peaks turn gold above 8,000 feet, Gambel oaks go orange and russet at mid-elevations, and cottonwoods line the creek bottoms in butter yellow.

Peak color21 OctAim for 20 to 23 Oct

In the park today, Sep 25Still green

Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.

No new reports from the ground here this week.

Still greenStartingNearly peakPeakPast peakNo fall canopy we forecastInside the line, each band of elevation is painted on its own date.

Around Petrified Forest National Park Apache County holds most of the park and is starting to turn today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 9 days earlier than the park’s own stands: the park is still green. Navajo County, to the northwest, is 8 days behind.

By elevation The park runs from about 5,348 to 5,783 feet. It turns together: there isn’t enough relief here for the color to come down in stages.

5,750–6,000 ftStill greenpeak Oct 208%
5,500–5,750 ftStill greenpeak Oct 2155%
5,250–5,500 ftStill greenpeak Oct 2137%

Height off 3DEP inside the park’s own boundary; each band carries the date our model gives that elevation, corrections and all. The percentage is how much of the park stands in it.

That’s 2 days later than our model alone would say. This September has been running warm, which shifts peak color.

The place

Two hundred and twenty-five million years ago, these were actual trees. Now they are solid quartz, snapped into cross-sections and scattered across the Painted Desert like someone knocked over the world's oldest lumber yard. Petrified Forest holds one of the largest concentrations of petrified wood on earth, and the banded colors in the logs (reds, yellows, purples) look fake until you kneel down and realize they are stone.

Established 1962. About 800,000/year visitors.

Plan this trip

If you can only come on certain days

Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.

ArrivingLeaving

Tuesday 20 October to Wednesday 21 October

You’ll find it peak color.

That's the day our forecast puts peak color here.

5,500–5,750 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 21
5,250–5,500 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 21

What turns: quaking aspen, Gambel oak, bigtooth maple, serviceberry
Entrance: $25

What turns, and when

quaking aspen43%
Gambel oak29%
bigtooth maple14%
serviceberry14%

Also named across Arizona, outside what the canopy read measures here: Arizona Sycamore, Fremont Cottonwood.

Aspens on the San Francisco Peaks turn gold above 8,000 feet, Gambel oaks go orange and russet at mid-elevations, and cottonwoods line the creek bottoms in butter yellow.

This forecast is built from the species that stand here, their elevation and this September’s weather, and corrected in season by cameras, foresters and our own crew. Out here we score it against NASA's satellite record of when the canopy shuts down, read inside each unit’s own boundary: two dates in three land within 12 days of it. How this map is made

All of Arizona