When is peak fall color at Spanish Peaks Wilderness?

Our forecast puts peak color at Spanish Peaks Wilderness around 9 Oct. The four days to aim for are 8 to 11 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Spanish Peaks Wilderness Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Spanish Peaks Wilderness?

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 color9 OctAim for 8 to 11 Oct

In the wilderness 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 Spanish Peaks Wilderness Huerfano County holds most of the wilderness and is nearly peak today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 9 days earlier than the wilderness’s own stands: the wilderness is starting to turn. Las Animas County, to the east, is 7 days behind.

By elevation The wilderness runs from about 8,860 to 12,034 feet. That’s 9 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 27, the low ground holds until about Oct 6, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 8,000 to 9,000 foot band.

12,000–13,000 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 275%
11,000–12,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 2516%
10,000–11,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 2535%
9,000–10,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 135%
8,000–9,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 68%

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.

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

Thursday 8 October to Friday 9 October

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

Up at 11,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 25; down at 10,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 1. Pick your elevation for the day you come.

11,000–12,000 ftFadingpeak Sep 25
10,000–11,000 ftFadingpeak Sep 25
9,000–10,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 1

Where to drive: Highway of Legends (CO 12), about 6 miles · Enchanted Circle (NM 38, 522 and 64), about 60 miles · Cumbres and La Manga passes (CO 17), about 85 miles
What turns: quaking aspen, Gambel oak, bigtooth maple, serviceberry

What turns, and when

quaking aspen86%
Gambel oak8%
bigtooth maple3%
serviceberry3%

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