Peak color, most of the stand9 OctAim for 8 to 11 Oct
In the wilderness today, Sep 25Starting to turn
black cottonwood and red alder
bigleaf maple and vine maple, peak Oct 19
Peak color should arrive around 30 Sep for the black cottonwood and red alder, and around 19 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 43 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 Roaring River Wilderness Nearly all of the wilderness is in Clackamas County, which is starting to turn today.By elevation The wilderness runs from about 1,847 to 4,672 feet. That’s 2 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Oct 7, 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 1,000 to 2,000 foot band.
4,000–5,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 736%
3,000–4,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1334%
2,000–3,000 ftStill greenpeak Oct 1723%
1,000–2,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 97%
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.
Thursday 8 October to Friday 9 October
You’ll find it peak color up high, nearly peak lower down.
Up at 4,000 feet the stands peak around Oct 7; down at 3,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 17. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
4,000–5,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 7
3,000–4,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 13
2,000–3,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 17
Where to drive
Historic Columbia River Highway, about 29 miles · McKenzie Pass Scenic Byway (Route 242), about 63 miles
What turns
bigleaf maple, black cottonwood, vine maple, red alder, willow
What turns, and when
bigleaf maple26%
black cottonwood22%
vine maple18%
red alder16%
willow10%
red-osier dogwood4%
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
