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.
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 Lost Creek Wilderness Park County holds most of the wilderness and is peak color today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 10 days earlier than the wilderness’s own stands: the wilderness is nearly peak. Jefferson County, to the northeast, is 10 days behind.By elevation The wilderness runs from about 8,338 to 11,627 feet. That’s 11 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 20, the low ground holds until about Oct 1, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 8,000 to 9,000 foot band.
11,000–12,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 2020%
10,000–11,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1928%
9,000–10,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 2529%
8,000–9,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 123%
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.
Friday 2 October to Saturday 3 October
You’ll find it fading up high, peak color lower down.
Up at 11,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 20; down at 9,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 1. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
11,000–12,000 ftFadingpeak Sep 20
10,000–11,000 ftFadingpeak Sep 19
9,000–10,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 25
8,000–9,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 1
Where to drive
Kenosha Pass (US 285), about 16 miles · Guanella Pass, about 24 miles · Boreas Pass Road, about 26 miles
What turns
quaking aspen, narrowleaf cottonwood, willow, water birch, thinleaf alder
What turns, and when
quaking aspen67%
narrowleaf cottonwood15%
willow10%
water birch5%
thinleaf alder4%
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.
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
