When is peak fall color at Lone Peak Wilderness?

Our forecast puts peak color at Lone Peak Wilderness around 6 Oct. The four days to aim for are 5 to 8 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Lone Peak Wilderness Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Lone Peak Wilderness?

Quaking Aspen, Bigtooth Maple, Gambel Oak, Narrowleaf Cottonwood, 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.

Peak color6 OctAim for 5 to 8 Oct

In the wilderness today, Sep 25Starting to turn

Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.

6 reports came in from Utah County this week, 5 of them still green and 1 of them patchy color. 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 Lone Peak Wilderness Utah County holds most of the wilderness and is nearly peak today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 6 days earlier than the wilderness’s own stands: the wilderness is starting to turn. Salt Lake County, to the northwest, is 4 days behind.

By elevation The wilderness runs from about 5,924 to 10,436 feet. That’s 30 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 13, the low ground holds until about Oct 13, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 6,000 to 7,000 foot band.

10,000–11,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1313%
9,000–10,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1922%
8,000–9,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 2521%
7,000–8,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 122%
6,000–7,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 716%
5,000–6,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 136%

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.

Today from the NEON.D15.REDB.DP1.20002 camera, 15 km from Lone Peak Wilderness — See it now PhenoCam Network, Red Butte Creek camera, 15 km away, captured Sep 25.

That’s 1 day later than our model alone would say. This September has been running warm, which shifts peak color.

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

Monday 5 October to Tuesday 6 October

You’ll find it leaves down up high, peak color lower down.

Up at 10,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 13; down at 7,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 7. Pick your elevation for the day you come.

10,000–11,000 ftLeaves downpeak Sep 13
9,000–10,000 ftFadingpeak Sep 19
8,000–9,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 25
7,000–8,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 1
6,000–7,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 7

Where to drive: Alpine Scenic Loop (Routes 92 and 189), about 7 miles · Guardsman Pass, about 11 miles · Mirror Lake Highway (UT 150), about 38 miles
What turns: quaking aspen, bigtooth maple, Gambel oak, serviceberry

What turns, and when

quaking aspen36%
bigtooth maple35%
Gambel oak24%
serviceberry5%

Also named across Utah, outside what the canopy read measures here: Narrowleaf Cottonwood, 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

All of Utah