Peak color, most of the stand9 OctAim for 8 to 11 Oct
In the forest today, Sep 25Starting to turn
bigleaf maple and black cottonwood
vine maple and western larch, peak Oct 15
Peak color should arrive around 5 Oct for the bigleaf maple and black cottonwood, and around 15 Oct for the vine maple and western larch.
Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.
3 reports came in from Chelan County this week, 2 of them still green and 1 of them at peak. 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 Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest Chelan County holds most of the forest and is starting to turn today. Okanogan County, to the north, is 13 days ahead. Kittitas County, to the southwest, is 4 days ahead.By elevation The forest runs from about 2,053 to 6,621 feet. That’s 13 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 13, the low ground holds until about Sep 26, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 2,000 to 3,000 foot band.
6,000–7,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 1315%
5,000–6,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 2122%
4,000–5,000 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 2723%
3,000–4,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 420%
2,000–3,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 615%
1,000–2,000 ftPeak colorpeak Sep 264%
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 1 day earlier than our model alone would say. This September has been running cool, which shifts peak color.
Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.
Thursday 8 October to Friday 9 October
You’ll find it leaves down up high, just past peak lower down.
Up at 6,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 13; down at 3,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 6. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
6,000–7,000 ftLeaves downpeak Sep 13
5,000–6,000 ftFadingpeak Sep 21
4,000–5,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 27
3,000–4,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 4
2,000–3,000 ftJust past peakpeak Oct 6
Where to drive
Mountain Loop Highway, about 53 miles · Sherman Pass Scenic Byway (Route 20), about 97 miles
What turns
bigleaf maple, vine maple, black cottonwood, red alder, western larch
What turns, and when
bigleaf maple24%
vine maple23%
black cottonwood14%
red alder13%
western larch12%
willow7%
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
