Peak color, most of the stand8 OctAim for 7 to 10 Oct
In the wilderness today, Sep 25Starting to turn
black cottonwood and red alder
bigleaf maple and vine maple, peak Oct 20
Peak color should arrive around 30 Sep for the black cottonwood and red alder, and around 20 Oct for the bigleaf maple and vine maple.
Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.
Weather Wind to 52 mph Friday. Color may come down before it turns.
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 Mount Hood Wilderness Clackamas County holds most of the wilderness and is starting to turn today. Hood River County, to the north, is 3 days ahead. Wasco County, to the east, is 2 days behind.By elevation The wilderness runs from about 2,521 to 6,898 feet. That’s 26 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 12, the low ground holds until about Oct 16, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 4,000 to 5,000 foot band.
7,000–8,000 ftFadingpeak Sep 125%
6,000–7,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 236%
5,000–6,000 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 3013%
4,000–5,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 629%
3,000–4,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1237%
2,000–3,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1610%
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.
Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.
Wednesday 7 October to Thursday 8 October
You’ll find it just past peak up high, nearly peak lower down.
Up at 5,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 30; down at 3,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 16. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
5,000–6,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 30
4,000–5,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 6
3,000–4,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 12
2,000–3,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 16
Where to drive
Historic Columbia River Highway, about 23 miles · McKenzie Pass Scenic Byway (Route 242), about 76 miles
What turns
bigleaf maple, black cottonwood, red alder, vine maple, willow
What turns, and when
bigleaf maple26%
black cottonwood25%
red alder19%
vine maple13%
willow12%
red-osier dogwood6%
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
