Peak color, most of the stand11 OctAim for 10 to 13 Oct
In the wilderness today, Sep 25Starting to turn
bigleaf maple and vine maple
black cottonwood and red alder, peak Oct 1
Peak color should arrive around 1 Oct for the black cottonwood and red alder, and around 18 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 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 Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness Nearly all of the wilderness is in Clackamas County, which is starting to turn today.By elevation The wilderness runs from about 1,452 to 4,253 feet. It turns together: there isn’t enough relief here for the color to come down in stages.
4,000–5,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 812%
3,000–4,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1344%
2,000–3,000 ftStill greenpeak Oct 1731%
1,000–2,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 913%
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.
Saturday 10 October to Sunday 11 October
You’ll find it just past peak up high, peak color lower down.
Up at 4,000 feet the stands peak around Oct 8; down at 2,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 9. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
4,000–5,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 8
3,000–4,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 13
2,000–3,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 17
1,000–2,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 9
Where to drive
Historic Columbia River Highway, about 23 miles · McKenzie Pass Scenic Byway (Route 242), about 70 miles
What turns
bigleaf maple, vine maple, black cottonwood, red alder, Oregon white oak
What turns, and when
bigleaf maple29%
vine maple21%
black cottonwood18%
red alder16%
Oregon white oak9%
willow5%
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
