When is peak fall color at Mesa Verde National Park?

Our forecast puts peak color at Mesa Verde National Park around 21 Oct. The four days to aim for are 20 to 23 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Mesa Verde National Park Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Mesa Verde 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 color21 OctAim for 20 to 23 Oct

In the park today, Sep 25Still green

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 Mesa Verde National Park Nearly all of the park is in Montezuma County, which is starting to turn today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 17 days earlier than the park’s own stands: the park is still green.

By elevation The park runs from about 6,404 to 8,067 feet. That’s 12 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Oct 8, the low ground holds until about Oct 20, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 6,000 to 6,500 foot band.

8,000–8,500 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 87%
7,500–8,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1026%
7,000–7,500 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1332%
6,500–7,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1627%
6,000–6,500 ftStill greenpeak Oct 207%

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

The place

Mesa Verde was the first national park created to protect human achievement rather than natural scenery. Ancestral Puebloans built over 600 cliff dwellings into the sandstone alcoves here between 600 and 1300 AD, then left. The park preserves more than 5,000 archaeological sites across 52,485 acres of southwestern Colorado mesa top.

Established 1906. About 540,000/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

Tuesday 20 October to Wednesday 21 October

You’ll find it peak color.

That's the day our forecast puts peak color here.

7,500–8,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 10
7,000–7,500 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 13
6,500–7,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 16

Where to drive: Last Dollar Road, about 61 miles · Million Dollar Highway (US 550), about 62 miles · Dallas Divide (CO 62), about 67 miles
What turns: Gambel oak, bigtooth maple, serviceberry, quaking aspen
Entrance: $30

What turns, and when

Gambel oak57%
bigtooth maple19%
serviceberry19%
quaking aspen4%

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

All of Colorado