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 Indian Peaks Wilderness Boulder County holds most of the wilderness and is peak color today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 5 days later than the wilderness’s own stands: the wilderness is just past peak. Grand County, to the west, is 4 days ahead.By elevation The wilderness runs from about 9,087 to 12,249 feet. That’s 8 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 19, the low ground holds until about Sep 27, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 12,000 to 13,000 foot band.
12,000–13,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 199%
11,000–12,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1735%
10,000–11,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1540%
9,000–10,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 2112%
8,000–9,000 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 274%
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, Niwot Ridge Mountain Research Station camera, 8 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.
Friday 18 September to Saturday 19 September
You’ll find it peak color up high, nearly peak lower down.
Up at 12,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 19; down at 10,000 feet they hold on until about Sep 21. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
12,000–13,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 19
11,000–12,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 17
10,000–11,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 15
9,000–10,000 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 21
Where to drive
Peak to Peak Scenic Byway (CO 7, 72 and 119), about 9 miles · Bear Lake Road, about 18 miles · Trail Ridge Road (US 34), about 24 miles
What turns
quaking aspen, narrowleaf cottonwood, willow
What turns, and when
quaking aspen90%
narrowleaf cottonwood6%
willow4%
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
