I realize this may be more specific that would be useful for most people, but if you are headed to the Allegheny Front Highlands of West Virginia this may be of interest. In fact it applies literally only to the Dolly Sods/Canaan Valley/Blackwater Falls, area but I imagine it applies to the rest of the highlands, more or less.
I spend the weekend in Dolly Sods north. Blueberry was spectacular. If you plan a trip above 4000 feet, get there now. Mountain ash was still yellow but blotchy, with some bare, but the berries are there. Rhodos and other evergreens make a great contrast with the red blueberry and white rocks. Lower down, in the high valleys and slopes, maple and beech are very good, with some individuals just screaming. The area around 3000 feet, including the Canaan Valley, is just about at peak and looked like it is excellent this year. From 2000 to 3000 feet, the east side of the Front looks to be about a week away; I'm not sure about the Allegheny Plateau to the west, but I'd guess about the same. So really, the next week if key for WV.
As wvphillygirl implied, things are relatively dry (meaning, in the case of Dolly Sods, you could sometimes walk 50 feet without getting you feet wet). But still, I think waterfalls should be as good or a bit better than they usually are in fall, especially with the rain forecast for the next few days.
Asrale wrote:
The fall colors in Colorado seem to be mostly gone after the weekend's snow. This was the scene today at Maroon Bells:
Wow ... what a difference a few days can make
I just returned from Montreal-Quebec City. Not much activity there although leaves were beginning to turn. We went through an area of low pressure that was causing lots of rain, wind and cold, humid weather. How that will affect the leaves I do not really know.
I am surprised we have not heard from Vermont, New Hampshire and other New England States where surely by now there should be lots of activity.
The Smokeys should be pretty good the third week of this month.
It's been a very odd year in New England. Three early cold days, then long stretches of very warm weather, and tons of rain. Overall has made for a poor season in the far north and the higher elevations.
Has begun looking better in the last few days, but now another storm is forecast, so who knows.
I'm still deciding if it is worth heading out there. Don't want to miss the whole season, but driving that far for green, yellow and brown won't cut it...
So the fall color in the mountains might be gone, but I'm seeing lots of color around town now in the Boulder/Broomfield area. Not as nice as being in the mountains obviously but anyone still looking for photo ops should check out the low-lying areas along the Front Range.
In any case, I can add a bit more to my evolving eastern Sierra report... let me offer a bit more specific information and some thoughts about the current (as of last weekend) state of the colors and where they might be headed.
After my original post I visited McGee Creek and canyon. There are very large trees a bit less than two miles up this road before and near the campground. These trees are still mostly green, but moving toward that lime green phase with a few showing actual color. I think that a week or a more from now these trees could be quite spectacular.
Up higher, towards the pack station and the end of the road, the trees were still green. Unlike some of the other places I shot (Bishop Creek, for example) these trees showed little evidence of damage from the recent cold storm, so I would not be at all surprised if they change fairly soon. I've had some success in the past shooting right in the grove at the parking lot.
I also hiked a short distance up the trail that departs from the parking lot to head up canyon. Very soon after leaving the parking lot I began to encounter trees that were further along on the color change path.
I did not visit the areas I'm going to write about next, but I spoke to several people indendently about them and heard similar stories. Everyone reported that the spectacular and very large stands of aspens at Conway Summit have not yet really started to show color. They can tend to produce a bit later, so if I were to guess I'd say that they are a week or more away. I also heard that not much is yet happening in the well-known Lundy Canyon, which makes sense - I've often felt that this canyon tends to change a bit later. More general reports from one person whose word I respect a great deal was that there is little going on with the aspens in the Lee Vining area.
However, as I left the "east side," I drove up Lee Vining Canyon to cross Tioga Pass. At surprisingly low areas of the canyon I spotted a few trees that appeared to actually be quite colorful. Higher in the canyon, along the road that goes up the bottom of the canyon, many trees are still quite green. (Here, also, I think of this as an area that typically turns a bit later.)
Overall, lots of people I spoke to feel that many of the trees that were turning early - such as the higher elevations trees in Bishop Creek area - were stopped in their tracks by last week's snow storm. The leaves blew down or quickly went straight to black or brown. However, as I keep saying, lots of very green trees remain at lower levels.
For me, the weekend was productive, but overall the color was far from as spectacular as I have seen in the past - though that could change. Having shot some of those really amazing conditions in the past, I had two thoughts about how to deal with this:
1. Instead of trying to shoot full groves of stunningly colorful trees, I looked for compositions with individual colorful leaves or small groups of them.
2. And when the aspens aren't happening, there are a ton of other worthy subjects in the eastern Sierra. I spent one morning shooting way out in Owens Valley instead.
gdanmitchell wrote:
I visited the area around Rock Creek, Mosquito Flat, and Toms Place this afternoon - not during the good light hours, so no photos. (I was killing time before heading back to Bishop Creek.)
Trees in the upper reaches of this area (from the perspective of one driving a car - I did not hike past the road end) show some color but, like the trees in upper Bishop Creek (at least at North and South Lakes) that were changing colors when the recent storm came in seem to have ended up going straight to brown/black leaves. However, there are many green trees in the middle and lower sections of Rock Creek. I think that this area will look good a bit later.
I have it on good authority - from speaking to several people who were there - that there is very little color at this point in the Lee Vining area. I heard that there is some color up high in the Dunderberg area, but also heard that Conway Summit is otherwise still not changing. (This last paragraph is all second-hand info since I have not been to those places this week.)
I got up here on Saturday with my Wife her sister and brother in-law. The southern end of the state on Saturday had almost no change, it was weird. Sunday we went up towards Warren from the Killington area and saw some good color. Monday we went to Stowe and Smugglers Notch the color was peak up there and it is slowly moving south. Today we went through Woodstock and the area north of the town and the color was amazing in most areas, some still had a lot of green hanging around. The could nights have really kicked up the colors here. The first shot is from the Smugglers Notch area on Monday off of 108. The second is from today north of Woodstock they said we missed peak by a day or two but it still pretty good. The weird thing is cruising around in shorts and a t-shirt and sweating.
Forgot to add, North and East of 89 today had a lot of leaf drop and appears to be past peak. I will try to update tomorrow as we work the Killington area and south. Just a few quick up loads from my laptop, I can't wait to get them on my desktop at home.
Jason Houck wrote:
Forgot to add, North and East of 89 today had a lot of leaf drop and appears to be past peak. I will try to update tomorrow as we work the Killington area and south. Just a few quick up loads from my laptop, I can't wait to get them on my desktop at home.
Thanks for your updates Jason. Your #2 shot is really sweet!
vibhav wrote:
Any reports from Acadia? We will be there this coming Friday...
After a slow start, things look to be happening quite quickly in Maine. This weekend should be about peak for Acadia, and it looks like being a pretty solid year for color after all.
I actually called the Acadia visitors' center and they said they were around peak now, and that (in her words) the color was "muted" this year. (Which has been consistent with my experiences in most of the NE.)
