National Scenic Area·Oregon, Washington·292,682 acres
Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area
Forecast issued 25 Sep, 5:21pm ET
Peak color, most of the stand13 OctAim for 12 to 15 Oct
In the river today, Sep 25Starting to turn
bigleaf maple and vine maple
black cottonwood and northern red oak, peak Sep 26
Peak color should arrive around 26 Sep for the black cottonwood and northern red oak, and around 18 Oct for the bigleaf maple and vine maple.
Roadsides and wetland edges turn first, and the woods behind them run a few days later.
Weather Wind to 41 mph Friday. Color may come down before it turns.
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 Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Klickitat County holds most of the river and is nearly peak today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 11 days earlier than the river’s own stands: the river is starting to turn. Skamania County, to the northwest, is 4 days behind. Wasco County, to the southeast, is 11 days behind.By elevation The river runs from about 131 to 2,755 feet. That’s 2 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Oct 14, the low ground holds until about Oct 12, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 0 to 1,000 foot band.
2,000–3,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1418%
1,000–2,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 933%
0–1,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1246%
SepOctNov
Height off 3DEP inside the river’s own boundary; each band carries the date our model gives that elevation, corrections and all. The percentage is how much of the river stands in it.
Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.
Monday 12 October to Tuesday 13 October
You’ll find it peak color.
That's the day our forecast puts peak color here.
2,000–3,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 14
1,000–2,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 9
0–1,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 12
Where to drive
Historic Columbia River Highway, about 23 miles · McKenzie Pass Scenic Byway (Route 242), about 97 miles
What turns
bigleaf maple, vine maple, black cottonwood, red alder, Oregon white oak
What turns, and when
bigleaf maple27%
vine maple22%
black cottonwood18%
red alder13%
Oregon white oak9%
northern red oak4%
Also named across Oregon, outside what the canopy read measures here: Western Larch.
Vine maples turn vivid scarlet in the understory of Douglas fir forests, bigleaf maples go gold with enormous leaves, and the Columbia Gorge frames it all against waterfalls and basalt.
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
