When is peak fall color at Redwood National Park?

Our forecast puts peak color at Redwood National Park around 19 Oct. The four days to aim for are 18 to 21 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Redwood National Park Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Redwood 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 color, most of the stand19 OctAim for 18 to 21 Oct

In the park today, Sep 25Still green

Fremont cottonwood and white alder

bigleaf maple and vine maple, peak Nov 8

Peak color should arrive around 16 Oct for the Fremont cottonwood and white alder, and around 8 Nov for the bigleaf maple and vine 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 Redwood National Park Humboldt County holds most of the park and is starting to turn today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 4 days earlier than the park’s own stands: the park is still green. Del Norte County, to the north, is 3 days behind.

By elevation The park runs from about 175 to 2,154 feet. It turns together: there isn’t enough relief here for the color to come down in stages.

2,000–2,500 ftStill greenpeak Oct 1810%
1,500–2,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1422%
1,000–1,500 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1527%
500–1,000 ftStill greenpeak Oct 1725%
0–500 ftStill greenpeak Oct 1816%

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 delnortecounty1 camera, 30 km from Redwood National Park — See it now PhenoCam Network, Del Norte County Site 1 camera, 30 km away, captured Sep 25.

The place

The tallest living things on earth grow along 40 miles of Northern California coast, and standing at the base of a 350-foot redwood does something to your sense of scale that never fully resets. These groves hold 45 percent of all remaining old-growth redwood forest. The trees were here before Rome. Some of them are still growing.

Established 1968. About 605K/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

Sunday 18 October to Monday 19 October

You’ll find it peak color.

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

2,000–2,500 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 18
1,500–2,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 14
1,000–1,500 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 15
500–1,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 17
0–500 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 18

What turns: Fremont cottonwood, white alder, willow, California black oak, bigleaf maple
Entrance: No entrance fee

What turns, and when

Fremont cottonwood28%
white alder18%
willow18%
California black oak13%
bigleaf maple10%
blue oak6%

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