Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.
Weather Hard frost Saturday 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 Never Summer Wilderness Grand County holds most of the wilderness and is just past peak today. Jackson County, to the northwest, is 5 days behind.By elevation The wilderness runs from about 9,285 to 11,835 feet. That’s 3 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 19, the low ground holds until about Sep 22, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 9,500 to 10,000 foot band.
11,500–12,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 197%
11,000–11,500 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1519%
10,500–11,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1323%
10,000–10,500 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1621%
9,500–10,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1915%
9,000–9,500 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 2211%
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.
Latest daylight frame PhenoCam Network, Rocky Mountain National Park CASTNET camera, 16 km away, captured Sep 24.
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.
Saturday 19 September to Sunday 20 September
You’ll find it just past peak up high, nearly peak lower down.
Up at 11,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 15; down at 9,500 feet they hold on until about Sep 22. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
11,000–11,500 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 15
10,500–11,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 13
10,000–10,500 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 16
9,500–10,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 19
9,000–9,500 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 22
Where to drive
Trail Ridge Road (US 34), about 10 miles · Bear Lake Road, about 16 miles · Cache la Poudre Canyon (CO 14), about 27 miles
What turns
quaking aspen, narrowleaf cottonwood, willow, thinleaf alder, water birch
What turns, and when
quaking aspen42%
narrowleaf cottonwood20%
willow13%
thinleaf alder7%
water birch7%
Gambel oak6%
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
