When is peak fall color at Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area?

Our forecast puts peak color at Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area around 18 Oct. The four days to aim for are 17 to 20 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area?

Vine Maple, Bigleaf Maple, Black Cottonwood, Red Alder, 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.

Peak color, most of the stand18 OctAim for 17 to 20 Oct

In the recreation area today, Sep 25Still green

black cottonwood and willow

bigleaf maple, peak Oct 31

Peak color should arrive around 7 Oct for the black cottonwood and willow, and around 31 Oct for the bigleaf maple.

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

No new reports from the ground here this week.

Still greenStartingNearly peakPeakPast peakNo fall canopy we forecast

Around Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area Douglas County holds most of the recreation area and is starting to turn today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 2 days earlier than the recreation area’s own stands: the recreation area is still green. Coos County, to the south, is 1 day behind. Lane County, to the east, is 2 days ahead.

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

Saturday 17 October to Sunday 18 October

You’ll find it peak color.

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

Where to drive: McKenzie Pass Scenic Byway (Route 242), about 124 miles
What turns: black cottonwood, bigleaf maple, red alder, willow, red-osier dogwood

What turns, and when

black cottonwood30%
bigleaf maple21%
red alder20%
willow20%
red-osier dogwood10%

Also named across Oregon, outside what the canopy read measures here: Vine Maple, 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.

Across Oregon as a whole: Mid-to-late October in the Cascades and Gorge, early November in the Willamette Valley.

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 Oregon