Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.
Weather Hard frost Saturday night. Peak may come early and go fast.
1 report came in from Eagle 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 Eagles Nest Wilderness Summit County holds most of the wilderness and is just past peak today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 2 days earlier than the wilderness’s own stands: the wilderness is peak color. Eagle County, to the west, is 4 days behind.By elevation The wilderness runs from about 8,629 to 12,200 feet. That’s 9 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 20, the low ground holds until about Sep 29, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 9,000 to 10,000 foot band.
12,000–13,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 208%
11,000–12,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1926%
10,000–11,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1733%
9,000–10,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 2322%
8,000–9,000 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 2910%
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.
See it now PhenoCam Network, West St Louis Creek camera, 20 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 22 September to Wednesday 23 September
You’ll find it just past peak up high, nearly peak lower down.
Up at 12,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 20; down at 9,000 feet they hold on until about Sep 29. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
12,000–13,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 20
11,000–12,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 19
10,000–11,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 17
9,000–10,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 23
8,000–9,000 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 29
Where to drive
Boreas Pass Road, about 26 miles · Guanella Pass, about 31 miles · Kenosha Pass (US 285), about 34 miles
What turns
quaking aspen, narrowleaf cottonwood, willow
What turns, and when
quaking aspen88%
narrowleaf cottonwood7%
willow5%
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
