When is peak fall color at Kings Canyon National Park?

Our forecast puts peak color at Kings Canyon National Park around 9 Oct. The four days to aim for are 8 to 11 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Kings Canyon National Park Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Kings Canyon National Park?

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 color9 OctAim for 8 to 11 Oct

In the park 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 Kings Canyon National Park Fresno County holds most of the park and is still green today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 22 days later than the park’s own stands: the park is starting to turn. Tulare County, to the south, is 6 days ahead. Inyo County, to the east, is 16 days ahead.

By elevation The park runs from about 6,891 to 12,344 feet. That’s 33 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 24, the low ground holds until about Oct 14, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 6,000 to 8,000 foot band.

12,000–14,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 2411%
10,000–12,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 2151%
8,000–10,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 226%
6,000–8,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1410%

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.

Today from the NEON.D17.TEAK.DP1.00033 camera, 19 km from Kings Canyon National Park — See it now PhenoCam Network, Lower Teakettle camera, 19 km away, captured Sep 25.

The place

Kings Canyon drops over 8,200 feet from Spanish Mountain to the confluence of the South and Middle Forks of the Kings River. That makes it one of the deepest canyons in North America, deeper than the Grand Canyon by some measurements. First protected in 1890 under a different name, it spent fifty years as General Grant National Park before FDR expanded it into something worthy of the geography.

Established 1940. About 699,000/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

Thursday 8 October to Friday 9 October

You’ll find it fading up high, nearly peak lower down.

Up at 12,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 24; down at 8,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 14. Pick your elevation for the day you come.

12,000–14,000 ftFadingpeak Sep 24
10,000–12,000 ftFadingpeak Sep 21
8,000–10,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 2
6,000–8,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 14

Where to drive: Bishop Creek Road (Route 168), about 25 miles · US Route 395 (Eastern Sierra), about 50 miles · June Lake Loop (Route 158), about 67 miles
What turns: Fremont cottonwood, California black oak, blue oak, white alder, willow
Entrance: $35

What turns, and when

Fremont cottonwood21%
California black oak18%
blue oak15%
white alder14%
willow14%
valley oak7%

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

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