When is peak fall color at Great Sand Dunes National Park?

Our forecast puts peak color at Great Sand Dunes National Park around 13 Oct. The four days to aim for are 12 to 15 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Great Sand Dunes National Park Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Great Sand Dunes National Park?

Quaking Aspen, Narrowleaf Cottonwood, 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.

Peak color13 OctAim for 12 to 15 Oct

In the park today, Sep 25Starting to turn

Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.

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 Great Sand Dunes National Park Alamosa County holds most of the park and is starting to turn today. Saguache County, to the northwest, is 19 days ahead.

By elevation The park runs from about 7,546 to 8,687 feet. That’s 12 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Oct 6, the low ground holds until about Oct 12, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 7,500 to 8,000 foot band.

8,500–9,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 66%
8,000–8,500 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 816%
7,500–8,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1275%

Height off 3DEP inside the park’s own boundary; each band carries the date our model gives that elevation, corrections and all. The percentage is how much of the park stands in it.

That’s 4 days later than our model alone would say. This September has been running warm, which shifts peak color.

The place

The tallest dunes in North America, 750 feet high, covering 30 square miles in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. They look Photoshopped against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains behind them. You hike barefoot up the ridgelines and slide back down, and it feels like you left the country without a passport.

Established 2004. About 438,000/year visitors.

Plan this trip

If you can only come on certain days

Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.

ArrivingLeaving

Monday 12 October to Tuesday 13 October

You’ll find it just past peak up high, peak color lower down.

Up at 8,000 feet the stands peak around Oct 8; down at 8,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 12. Pick your elevation for the day you come.

8,000–8,500 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 8
7,500–8,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 12

Where to drive: Highway of Legends (CO 12), about 48 miles · Wolf Creek Pass (US 160), about 67 miles · Cumbres and La Manga passes (CO 17), about 69 miles
What turns: narrowleaf cottonwood, quaking aspen, willow, thinleaf alder, water birch
Entrance: $25

What turns, and when

narrowleaf cottonwood31%
quaking aspen24%
willow21%
thinleaf alder10%
water birch10%
Gambel oak3%

Also named across Colorado, outside what the canopy read measures here: 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

All of Colorado