Peak color lands around Oct 7 in most of Vermont, but it moves 7 days across the state. Here’s where, and when, and how sure we are.
Vermont’s season, place by place
Every place we forecast in Vermont, each set on the calendar at its peak and painted by how far along it is today, Sep 25.
First: Breadloaf Wilderness, Oct 4. Last: Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park, Oct 9.
The dashed rule is today; the solid one is the median of the places on this chart, Oct 7. The date at the top of the page is the median county, which includes the low ground between them.
The county map today
Where to go in Vermont
The destinations we cover in Vermont, in the order their color arrives. Each carries its own forecast and its own band, because a state isn’t one place.
- Near peakPeak 4 Oct best 3 to 6 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 5 Oct best 4 to 7 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 6 Oct best 5 to 8 Oct
- Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 6 Oct best 5 to 8 Oct
- Peru Peak WildernessToo earlyPeak 6 Oct best 5 to 8 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 7 Oct best 6 to 9 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 7 Oct best 6 to 9 Oct
- Lye Brook WildernessToo earlyPeak 7 Oct best 6 to 9 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 7 Oct best 6 to 9 Oct
- Big Branch WildernessToo earlyPeak 7 Oct best 6 to 9 Oct
- George D. Aiken WildernessToo earlyPeak 7 Oct best 6 to 9 Oct
- Bristol Cliffs WildernessToo earlyPeak 7 Oct best 6 to 9 Oct
- Missisquoi National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 8 Oct best 7 to 10 Oct
- Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical ParkToo earlyPeak 9 Oct best 8 to 11 Oct
When to go
Across 14 counties, peak color is forecast to arrive first in Essex County around Oct 2 and last in Grand Isle County around Oct 9. Most of the state peaks near Oct 7.
Each date is the middle of the four days we’d aim a trip at, and each place page names them. We score the model against 27 long-running forest monitoring sites in this part of the country and publish what it got wrong.
This autumn is running 2 days early in Vermont. September has run cooler than the 1991 to 2020 normal so far, and the dates above already include that. It’s a real signal but a modest one: temperature explains under a tenth of how much peak color moves year to year.
Late September through mid-October, north to south is how Vermont is usually described.
What actually turns
Sugar maples turn brilliant orange and scarlet, birches go gold, beeches fade to bronze, and against the dark green of spruce the effect is iconic.
- Sugar Maple
- Red Maple
- Yellow Birch
- White Birch
- American Beech
The Northeast Kingdom colors first, typically late September. Route 100 through the Green Mountains is the classic drive, but the quieter roads around Peacham and Craftsbury are where the real magic is.
Worth the drive
Orleans County in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont is where fall color arrives first in New England. The rolling hills, dairy farms, and small villages of the Kingdom produce a pastoral fall landscape that feels like it was designed for a calendar. This is the quiet, uncrowded Vermont that existed before Instagram, and it is still the best.
Lamoille County is home to Stowe and the spine of the Green Mountains, and it is the beating heart of Vermont's fall foliage tourism. Route 100 through the Stowe valley and the Smugglers' Notch Road (Route 108) through the narrowest mountain pass in the state are two of the most photographed fall roads in America. Arrive by the first week of October for peak color.
Every county, by peak week
Elevation does most of the work here. Color runs down a mountain at roughly a day per 100 meters, so a ridge and the valley below it can be a week or two apart in the same county.
Addison regional, Caledonia regional, Chittenden regional, Essex regional, Lamoille, Orleans regional
Bennington, Franklin, Grand Isle, Orange, Rutland, Washington, Windham, Windsor
Every date on this site is a forecast: a model corrected by ground reports, carrying a measured error, published in full. Check conditions with the land manager before you travel. Last reviewed September 2026. Open the live map