Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.
Weather Hard frost Wednesday 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 Buffalo Peaks Wilderness Park County holds most of the wilderness and is peak color today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 1 day later than the wilderness’s own stands: the wilderness is just past peak. Chaffee County, to the south, is 4 days behind. Lake County, to the northwest, is 5 days ahead.By elevation The wilderness runs from about 9,162 to 12,295 feet. That’s 9 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 23, the low ground holds until about Sep 26, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 11,000 to 12,000 foot band.
12,000–13,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 2311%
11,000–12,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 2149%
10,000–11,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1927%
9,000–10,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 2610%
SepOctNov
Height off 3DEP inside the wilderness’s own boundary; each band carries the date our model gives that elevation, corrections and all. The percentage is how much of the wilderness 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.
Monday 21 September to Tuesday 22 September
You’ll find it peak color up high, nearly peak lower down.
Up at 12,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 23; down at 10,000 feet they hold on until about Sep 26. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
12,000–13,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 23
11,000–12,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 21
10,000–11,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 19
9,000–10,000 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 26
Where to drive
Cottonwood Pass (CO 306), about 19 miles · Independence Pass (CO 82), about 22 miles · Boreas Pass Road, about 28 miles
What turns
quaking aspen, narrowleaf cottonwood, willow, water birch
What turns, and when
quaking aspen40%
narrowleaf cottonwood30%
willow20%
water birch10%
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, 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
