When is peak fall color at Point Reyes National Seashore?

Our forecast puts peak color at Point Reyes National Seashore around 27 Oct. The four days to aim for are 26 to 29 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Point Reyes National Seashore Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Point Reyes National Seashore?

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 color, most of the stand27 OctAim for 26 to 29 Oct

In the seashore today, Sep 25Still green

vine maple and black cottonwood

bigleaf maple, peak Nov 10

Peak color should arrive around 17 Oct for the vine maple and black cottonwood, and around 10 Nov for the bigleaf maple.

Roadsides and wetland edges turn first, and the woods behind them run a few days later.

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 Point Reyes National Seashore Nearly all of the seashore is in Marin County, which is still green today.

By elevation The seashore runs from about -2 to 875 feet. That’s 3 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Oct 25, the low ground holds until about Oct 27, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the -250 to 0 foot band.

750–1,000 ftStill greenpeak Oct 255%
500–750 ftStill greenpeak Oct 258%
250–500 ftStill greenpeak Oct 2615%
0–250 ftStill greenpeak Oct 2749%
-250–0 ftStill greenpeak Oct 2720%

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

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

Monday 26 October to Tuesday 27 October

You’ll find it peak color.

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

250–500 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 26
0–250 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 27
-250–0 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 27

What turns: bigleaf maple, vine maple, black cottonwood, red alder, Fremont cottonwood

What turns, and when

bigleaf maple26%
vine maple23%
black cottonwood12%
red alder11%
Fremont cottonwood10%
white alder7%

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

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