Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.
1 report came in from Chaffee County this week, 1 of them still green. Our date held. See the county on the map.
Still greenStartingNearly peakPeakPast peakNo fall canopy we forecastInside the line, each band of elevation is painted on its own date.
Around Browns Canyon National Monument Nearly all of the monument is in Chaffee County, which is nearly peak today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 12 days earlier than the monument’s own stands: the monument is starting to turn.By elevation The monument runs from about 7,633 to 9,795 feet. That’s 15 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 26, the low ground holds until about Oct 8, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 7,500 to 8,000 foot band.
9,500–10,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 2612%
9,000–9,500 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 2910%
8,500–9,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 219%
8,000–8,500 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 533%
7,500–8,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 823%
SepOctNov
Height off 3DEP inside the monument’s own boundary; each band carries the date our model gives that elevation, corrections and all. The percentage is how much of the monument stands in it.
That’s 4 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.
Thursday 8 October to Friday 9 October
You’ll find it fading up high, peak color lower down.
Up at 9,500 feet the stands peak around Sep 26; down at 8,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 8. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
9,500–10,000 ftFadingpeak Sep 26
9,000–9,500 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 29
8,500–9,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 2
8,000–8,500 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 5
7,500–8,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 8
Where to drive
Cottonwood Pass (CO 306), about 23 miles · Independence Pass (CO 82), about 40 miles · Boreas Pass Road, about 49 miles
What turns
quaking aspen, Gambel oak, narrowleaf cottonwood, willow, bigtooth maple
What turns, and when
quaking aspen50%
Gambel oak15%
narrowleaf cottonwood11%
willow7%
bigtooth maple7%
serviceberry7%
Also named across Colorado, outside what the canopy read measures here: Rocky Mountain Maple, Alder.
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
