When is peak fall color at Wild Sky Wilderness?

Our forecast puts peak color at Wild Sky Wilderness around 3 Oct. The four days to aim for are 2 to 5 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Wild Sky Wilderness Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Wild Sky 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 stand3 OctAim for 2 to 5 Oct

In the wilderness today, Sep 25Nearly peak

willow and black cottonwood

bigleaf maple and vine maple, peak Oct 15

Peak color should arrive around 28 Sep for the willow and black cottonwood, and around 15 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 Wild Sky Wilderness Snohomish County holds most of the wilderness and is starting to turn today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 1 day later than the wilderness’s own stands: the wilderness is nearly peak. King County, to the southwest, is 2 days ahead.

By elevation The wilderness runs from about 1,368 to 4,975 feet. That’s 10 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Sep 22, the low ground holds until about Oct 2, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 3,000 to 4,000 foot band.

5,000–6,000 ftJust past peakpeak Sep 225%
4,000–5,000 ftNearly peakpeak Sep 2728%
3,000–4,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 332%
2,000–3,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 723%
1,000–2,000 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 213%

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

Friday 2 October to Saturday 3 October

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

Up at 4,000 feet the stands peak around Sep 27; down at 2,000 feet they hold on until about Oct 2. 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 2

Where to drive: Mountain Loop Highway, about 16 miles · Sherman Pass Scenic Byway (Route 20), about 145 miles
What turns: willow, bigleaf maple, black cottonwood, vine maple, red alder

What turns, and when

willow40%
bigleaf maple18%
black cottonwood15%
vine maple15%
red alder11%

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