Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.
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 Ashley National Forest Sweetwater County holds most of the forest and is peak color today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 3 days earlier than the forest’s own stands: the forest is nearly peak. Duchesne County, to the southwest, is 4 days ahead. Daggett County, to the east, is 3 days ahead.By elevation The forest runs from about 6,044 to 11,001 feet. That’s 30 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 14, 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 8,000 to 9,000 foot band.
11,000–12,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 145%
10,000–11,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1314%
9,000–10,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1917%
8,000–9,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 2619%
7,000–8,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 219%
6,000–7,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 924%
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.
That’s 2 days later than our model alone would say. This September has been running warm, which shifts peak color.
Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.
Sunday 27 September to Monday 28 September
You’ll find it fading up high, starting to turn lower down.
Up at 10,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 13; down at 7,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 9. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
10,000–11,000 ftFadingpeak Sep 13
9,000–10,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 19
8,000–9,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 26
7,000–8,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 2
6,000–7,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 9
Where to drive
Mirror Lake Highway (UT 150), about 50 miles · Guardsman Pass, about 76 miles · Alpine Scenic Loop (Routes 92 and 189), about 81 miles
What turns
quaking aspen, narrowleaf cottonwood, willow
What turns, and when
quaking aspen87%
narrowleaf cottonwood8%
willow5%
Every one of these turns yellow or gold here. The shades only tell the species apart.
Also named across Utah, outside what the canopy read measures here: Bigtooth Maple, Gambel Oak, Rocky Mountain Maple.
Utah's fall is a dual show: aspens turn gold on the high plateaus while bigtooth maples along the Wasatch Front go vivid scarlet, creating one of the most colorful mountain fronts in the West.
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
