Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.
1 report came in from Lane County this week, 1 of them just starting. Our date held. See the county on the map.
Still greenStartingNearly peakPeakPast peakNo fall canopy we forecastInside the line, each band of elevation is painted on its own date.
Around Three Sisters Wilderness Lane County holds most of the wilderness and is starting to turn today. Deschutes County, to the east, is 3 days ahead.By elevation The wilderness runs from about 3,074 to 7,085 feet. That’s 31 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 19, the low ground holds until about Oct 20, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 3,000 to 4,000 foot band.
7,000–8,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 196%
6,000–7,000 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 2712%
5,000–6,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 340%
4,000–5,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 927%
3,000–4,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1611%
2,000–3,000 ftStill greenpeak Oct 204%
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.
See it now PhenoCam Network, McRae Creek camera, 17 km away, captured Sep 25.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.
Thursday 15 October to Friday 16 October
You’ll find it fading up high, peak color lower down.
Up at 6,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 27; down at 4,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 16. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
6,000–7,000 ftFadingpeak Sep 27
5,000–6,000 ftFadingpeak Oct 3
4,000–5,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 9
3,000–4,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 16
Where to drive
McKenzie Pass Scenic Byway (Route 242), about 16 miles · Historic Columbia River Highway, about 107 miles
What turns
bigleaf maple, black cottonwood, red alder, vine maple, willow
What turns, and when
bigleaf maple25%
black cottonwood25%
red alder17%
vine maple15%
willow14%
red-osier dogwood5%
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
