When is peak fall color at Dinkey Lakes Wilderness?

Our forecast puts peak color at Dinkey Lakes Wilderness around 5 Oct. The four days to aim for are 4 to 7 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Dinkey Lakes Wilderness Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Dinkey Lakes Wilderness?

Quaking Aspen, Black Oak, Bigleaf Maple, Fremont Cottonwood, White Alder. Eastern Sierra aspens turn brilliant gold against granite walls, black oaks in Yosemite Valley go bronze and russet, and cottonwoods line the desert creeks in pale yellow.

Peak color5 OctAim for 4 to 7 Oct

In the wilderness today, Sep 25Starting to turn

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

Weather Hard frost Monday night. Peak may come early and go fast.

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 Dinkey Lakes Wilderness Nearly all of the wilderness is in Fresno County, which is still green today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 26 days later than the wilderness’s own stands: the wilderness is starting to turn.

By elevation The wilderness runs from about 8,292 to 9,831 feet. That’s 10 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 26, the low ground holds until about Oct 6, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 8,000 to 8,500 foot band.

9,500–10,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 2619%
9,000–9,500 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 3038%
8,500–9,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 329%
8,000–8,500 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 613%

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

Today from the NEON.D17.TEAK.DP1.00033 camera, 19 km from Dinkey Lakes Wilderness — See it now PhenoCam Network, Lower Teakettle camera, 19 km away, captured Sep 25.

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

Sunday 4 October to Monday 5 October

You’ll find it just past peak up high, peak color lower down.

Up at 9,500 feet the stands peak around Sep 26; down at 8,500 feet they hold on until about Oct 6. Pick your elevation for the day you come.

9,500–10,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 26
9,000–9,500 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 30
8,500–9,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 3
8,000–8,500 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 6

Where to drive: Bishop Creek Road (Route 168), about 27 miles · US Route 395 (Eastern Sierra), about 32 miles · June Lake Loop (Route 158), about 42 miles
What turns: Fremont cottonwood, white alder, willow, bigleaf maple, California black oak

What turns, and when

Fremont cottonwood33%
white alder22%
willow22%
bigleaf maple11%
California black oak11%

Also named across California, outside what the canopy read measures here: Quaking Aspen.

Eastern Sierra aspens turn brilliant gold against granite walls, black oaks in Yosemite Valley go bronze and russet, and cottonwoods line the desert creeks in pale 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 California