Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.
Weather Hard frost Thursday 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 Arapaho National Recreation Area Nearly all of the recreation area is in Grand County, which is just past peak today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 10 days earlier than the recreation area’s own stands: the recreation area is nearly peak.By elevation The recreation area runs from about 8,276 to 10,558 feet. That’s 17 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 13, the low ground holds until about Sep 30, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 8,000 to 8,500 foot band.
10,500–11,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 136%
10,000–10,500 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1720%
9,500–10,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 2011%
9,000–9,500 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 249%
8,500–9,000 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 2720%
8,000–8,500 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 3034%
SepOctNov
Height off 3DEP inside the recreation area’s own boundary; each band carries the date our model gives that elevation, corrections and all. The percentage is how much of the recreation area stands in it.
See it now PhenoCam Network, Niwot Ridge Mountain Research Station camera, 8 km away, captured Sep 25.
That’s 3 days later than our model alone would say. This September has been running warm, which shifts peak color.
Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.
Tuesday 29 September to Wednesday 30 September
You’ll find it fading up high, peak color lower down.
Up at 10,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 17; down at 8,500 feet they hold on until about Sep 30. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
10,000–10,500 ftFadingpeak Sep 17
9,500–10,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 20
9,000–9,500 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 24
8,500–9,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 27
8,000–8,500 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 30
Where to drive
Peak to Peak Scenic Byway (CO 7, 72 and 119), about 17 miles · Bear Lake Road, about 18 miles · Trail Ridge Road (US 34), about 21 miles
What turns
quaking aspen, narrowleaf cottonwood, willow, water birch, thinleaf alder
What turns, and when
quaking aspen61%
narrowleaf cottonwood17%
willow12%
water birch6%
thinleaf alder4%
Every one of these turns yellow or gold here. The shades only tell the species apart.
Also named across Colorado, outside what the canopy read measures here: Gambel Oak, Rocky Mountain Maple.
Colorado aspens are the main event, turning entire mountainsides gold and amber while Gambel oaks add russet and orange at lower elevations and cottonwoods line the rivers in 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
