When is peak fall color at Boulder River Wilderness?

Our forecast puts peak color at Boulder River Wilderness around 2 Oct. The four days to aim for are 1 to 4 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Boulder River Wilderness Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Boulder River Wilderness?

Vine Maple, Bigleaf Maple, Black Cottonwood, Red Alder, Western Larch. Vine maples turn scarlet in the Cascade understory, bigleaf maples go gold in the lowlands, and the western larches in the Okanogan and Wenatchee forests turn amber on the high slopes.

Peak color, most of the stand2 OctAim for 1 to 4 Oct

In the wilderness today, Sep 25Nearly peak

bigleaf maple and vine maple

black cottonwood and willow, peak Sep 17

Peak color should arrive around 17 Sep for the black cottonwood and willow, and around 11 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.

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 Boulder River Wilderness Nearly all of the wilderness is in Snohomish County, which is starting to turn today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 2 days later than the wilderness’s own stands: the wilderness is nearly peak.

By elevation The wilderness runs from about 483 to 4,753 feet. That’s 14 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 27, the low ground holds until about Oct 4, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 1,000 to 2,000 foot band.

4,000–5,000 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 2714%
3,000–4,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 326%
2,000–3,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 727%
1,000–2,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 115%
0–1,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 415%

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.

That’s 1 day earlier than our model alone would say. This September has been running cool, 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

Thursday 1 October to Friday 2 October

You’ll find it just past peak up high, nearly peak lower down.

Up at 4,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 27; down at 1,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 4. Pick your elevation for the day you come.

4,000–5,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 27
3,000–4,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 3
2,000–3,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 7
1,000–2,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 1
0–1,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 4

Where to drive: Mountain Loop Highway, about 9 miles
What turns: bigleaf maple, black cottonwood, vine maple, red alder, willow

What turns, and when

bigleaf maple26%
black cottonwood22%
vine maple20%
red alder16%
willow12%
red-osier dogwood3%

Also named across Washington, outside what the canopy read measures here: Western Larch.

Vine maples turn scarlet in the Cascade understory, bigleaf maples go gold in the lowlands, and the western larches in the Okanogan and Wenatchee forests turn amber on the high slopes.

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 Washington