When is peak fall color at Acadia National Park?

Our forecast puts peak color at Acadia National Park around 13 Oct. The four days to aim for are 12 to 15 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Acadia National Park Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Acadia National Park?

Sugar Maple, Red Maple, White Birch, American Beech, Red Oak. Maine's fall is defined by the contrast of scarlet maples and golden birches against dark spruce, with the rocky coast adding a blue backdrop that makes every color more vivid.

Peak color13 OctAim for 12 to 15 Oct

In the park today, Sep 25Starting to turn

Before you drive inA vehicle reservation is required to drive Cadillac Summit Road. Into late October, which covers the whole of the color here. Nothing else in the park needs one. The park’s own page on it.

Roadsides and wetland edges turn first, and the woods behind them run a few days later.

Weather Wind to 35 mph Sunday. Color may come down before it turns.

10 reports came in from Hancock County this week, 7 of them still green and 2 of them patchy color. Our date held. See the county on the map.

Still greenStartingNearly peakPeakPast peakNo fall canopy we forecastInside the line, each band of elevation is painted on its own date.

Around Acadia National Park Nearly all of the park is in Hancock County, which is starting to turn today. Knox County, to the west, is 3 days behind.

By elevation The park runs from about -7 to 609 feet. That’s 3 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Oct 13, the low ground holds until about Oct 14, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 250 to 500 foot band.

250–500 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1312%
0–250 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1458%
-250–0 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1424%

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 1 day earlier than our model alone would say. This September has been running cool, which shifts peak color.

The place

Cadillac Mountain is only 1,530 feet tall, which sounds modest until you realize there is nothing taller on the entire US Atlantic coast. From October through March, this is the first place in the country to catch sunrise. You stand up there in the dark with your coffee going cold, and then the light hits the granite and the ocean at the same time and you understand why people keep coming back to 49,000 acres of rocky Maine coastline.

Established 1919. About 4 million/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

Monday 12 October to Tuesday 13 October

You’ll find it peak color.

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

250–500 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 13
0–250 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 14
-250–0 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 14

Where to drive: Park Loop Road, about 5 miles
What turns: sugar maple, red maple, paper birch, yellow birch, American beech
Entrance: $35

What turns, and when

sugar maple27%
red maple23%
paper birch18%
yellow birch9%
American beech9%
quaking aspen9%

Also named across Maine, outside what the canopy read measures here: White Birch, Red Oak.

Maine's fall is defined by the contrast of scarlet maples and golden birches against dark spruce, with the rocky coast adding a blue backdrop that makes every color more vivid.

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. We score it here against 27 long-running forest cameras: two dates in three land within 10 days of the camera’s own peak. How this map is made

All of Maine