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.
17 reports came in from Gunnison County this week, 5 of them past peak and 4 of them at peak. 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 Fossil Ridge Wilderness Nearly all of the wilderness is in Gunnison County, which is nearly peak today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 6 days later than the wilderness’s own stands: the wilderness is just past peak.By elevation The wilderness runs from about 9,299 to 12,252 feet. That’s 3 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 2136%
10,000–11,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1935%
9,000–10,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 2619%
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, SNOD-MA camera, 19 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.
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 16 miles · Kebler Pass Road (County Road 12), about 27 miles · Independence Pass (CO 82), about 29 miles
What turns
quaking aspen, narrowleaf cottonwood, willow, water birch
What turns, and when
quaking aspen77%
narrowleaf cottonwood11%
willow8%
water birch4%
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
