Peak color, most of the stand12 OctAim for 11 to 14 Oct
In the forest today, Sep 25Starting to turn
bigleaf maple and vine maple
black cottonwood and red alder, peak Oct 3
Peak color should arrive around 3 Oct 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 39 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 Mt. Hood National Forest Clackamas County holds most of the forest and is starting to turn today. Wasco County, to the east, is 2 days behind. Hood River County, to the north, is 3 days ahead.By elevation The forest runs from about 1,169 to 5,111 feet. That’s 16 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 27, the low ground holds until about Oct 9, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 3,000 to 4,000 foot band.
5,000–6,000 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 276%
4,000–5,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 717%
3,000–4,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1336%
2,000–3,000 ftStill greenpeak Oct 1726%
1,000–2,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 911%
SepOctNov
Height off 3DEP inside the forest’s own boundary; each band carries the date our model gives that elevation, corrections and all. The percentage is how much of the forest stands in it.
Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.
Sunday 11 October to Monday 12 October
You’ll find it peak color.
That's the day our forecast puts peak color here.
4,000–5,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 7
3,000–4,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 13
2,000–3,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 17
1,000–2,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 9
Where to drive
Historic Columbia River Highway, about 27 miles · McKenzie Pass Scenic Byway (Route 242), about 68 miles
What turns
bigleaf maple, black cottonwood, vine maple, red alder, willow
What turns, and when
bigleaf maple27%
black cottonwood20%
vine maple17%
red alder16%
willow10%
Oregon white oak7%
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
