For sheer drama posed beside fall color in early November, it has to be Shasta.
Color spotter Namita Mishra was there this past weekend and sent back photographs of black oak, Quercus kelloggii, laden with orange leaves near the end of peak.
This week is likely the last to see peak color around the City of Mt. Shasta. Check below for previous reports on peak color being seen from Mt. Shasta south to Redding. 
Ryleigh Davalos, 15 mos., seems to have had her fill of fall color in this photo taken by her dad, Saturday, in downtown Los Altos.
C’mon Ryleigh we never get tired viewing fall color, especially in California’s urban forests.
In the South Bay and Peninsula villages of Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino, Los Altos, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Menlo Atherton, Redwood City and Burlingame, landscaped trees are nearing peak, and the show is now more lively than a crib mobile.
Downtown Los Altos has one of the Bay Area’s best displays of Chinese pistache, Pistacia chinensis, which have a long, vibrant display of fluorescent color.
When all other native trees are past peak, Black oak, Quercus kelloggii, hang in there.
Color spotter Clayton Peoples traveled to McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park on Saturday and was impressed by the fall color, which “was absolutely stunning. Although some of the black oak leaves have dried/browned a bit, others are still a vivid orange/yellow.
“Moreover,” he continued, “because autumn has been mild with few storms and little wind, trees are retaining their leaves quite well.”
He found that even “close to the falls, vegetation has begun to turn color, creating a colorful frame/backdrop for the falls. The same can be said for the creek, which is lined with a great variety of vegetation, all of which is sporting gorgeous fall color.”
That’s impressive, as Burney Falls is at elev. 2,783′ and yet elevations down to 100′ are nearing peak.
If you’re near Redding, Clayton encourages getting to Burney Falls now before storms arrive. As, the trip “is well worth it!”
The color of harvest is many faceted.
At Oak Glen in the San Bernardino Mountains, it is as: garnet-red as an apple, carrot-colored as a pumpkin, sorrel-brown as a chestnut, flaxen as a dry stalk of corn and as dazzling as a California sunset.
Harvest and Autumn’s peak met this week at Oak Glen, where visitors gathered apples, corn, chestnuts and pumpkins for their holiday tables.
Southern California color spotter Alena Nicholas was there to share the color of harvest.
Avenue of the Giants (US 101) was in full color between Fortuna and Ukiah, as north coast color spotter Walt Gabler drove south, yesterday.
He found black oak at full peak north of Weott and along the Eel River, though was disappointed with color south of Garberville, finding the Van Duzen river east of Carlotta to be disappointing.
At his family’s homestead in the backwoods of Humboldt County, God’s rays through the fog of a North Coast sunrise illuminated the life-giving mist that sustains the redwood forest.
This is the week to visit Chico.
This forested college town in the northwest Sacramento Valley is one of California’s cities of trees.
Red maple, Acer rubrum, Bidwell Park, Chico (11/3/18) Laura Jean[/caption]The best places to be immersed in Chico’s fall color are downtown and along the Esplanade (a boulevard north of Chico State University that is lined with landmark plane trees, oaks and elm), in Downtown Chico whose streets are shaded with big trees and in Bidwell Park, the third largest municipal park in California (3,670 acres).
Within the park, best bets for fall color are: Sycamore Pond, Cedar Grove (home to the second tree experimentation farm in the U.S., where California pioneer John Bidwell planted trees from around the world), the Hooker Oak (now dead, though a massive Valley oak when living that was found to be two oaks that had grown together) and the Chico Creek Nature Center’s native plant garden.
Here’s a fowl idea. Between waiting for fall color to descend through the foothill canyons to lower elevations, fill the time enjoying the fall migration of water fowl and their predators to California’s Central Valley.
Robert Kermen spent yesterday among sandhill cranes, great blue heron, egrets and a watchful redtail hawk near Nelson.
He writes, “With the flooding of the harvested rice checks, rodents are forced above ground where blue herons, red tail hawks, kestrels and other predators gobble them up.”
“Also seen are magnificent sandhill cranes, that even this late in the season can be seen going through courtship displays.”
If you stay until dusk, you’ll see them flying in at sunset to roost overnight in shallow ponds or on islands protected from predators by natural moats.
All the leaves are down
And the sky’s not gray
I’ve been for a walk
On an autumn day
I’d be seeing Patchy
If I was in L.A.California dreamin’
— apologies to The Mamas and the Papas
On such a late fall day …
Michael Beatley walked past a church on his hike to Boyle Ravine in Quincy yesterday morning, if he passed Community United Methodist along the way.
Boyle Ravine (First Report) provides outdoor learning for students at nearby Quincy Elementary School (What a great idea. Every school oughta have outdoor learning nearby). It’s at the end of Coburn St. and has been newly added to the California Fall Color map.
There, you’ll find the faded glory of bigleaf maple, Pacific dogwood, black oak, alder, fern, violas, cedar, pine and fir trees along the forest trail.Looks like we’ll have to do some California dreamin’ about visiting it next autumn.
Along the Upper Sacramento River between Dunsmuir and the city of Mt. Shasta (I-5), you can hike beside railroad tracks laid by the pioneer Central Pacific RR to waterfalls, fabulous fly fishing and peak fall color.
Phillip Reedy and a fishing buddy hiked to fish the river on Friday, but “Not wanting to have our camera gear take a bath, we decided not to wade across the river and instead hiked along the railroad tracks from Shasta Way in Dunsmuir to Mossbrae falls,” discovering “great fall color and views of Mt. Shasta along the tracks, although we had to clear off of the tracks at one point to let a long freight train pass by.”
Phil estimates this is likely the last opportunity to see peak color between Dunsmuir and the city of Mt. Shasta. “The trees still look great near Dunsmuir but are dropping leaves rapidly. Closer to Mt. Shasta at Cantera Loop the trees are mostly bare.”
South of Dunsmuir, north of the I-5 fire area, the mountainsides are still very colorful with scrub oak. Though, overall fall color in the mountains of northern California is “dwindling rapidly, so it’s time to look to lower elevations”
He said the hike to Mossbrae Falls (near the bedroom community of Shasta Springs) and the falls themselves are beautiful and worth the effort. A shorter hike from a parking area in Dunsmuir leads to Hedge Creek Falls, nearing the end of their peak.
Dunsmuir is a town that loves trees and trains.
Dogwood Daze, held annually in late May, is a friendly, homespun event with pancake breakfast, pie social, doggie parade, soapbox derby, homemade crafts and a well-timed realtor’s open house. No doubt a number of out-of-towners were enticed to buy a second home in Dunsmuir after experiencing the small-town, innocent fun of Dogwood Daze.
The Dunsmuir Botanical Gardens in the town park is full of native white dogwood (Pacific Dogwood, Cornus nuttallii) which, though now past peak, carried heavy loads of red and rose-colored leaves this past month. Locals remain proud of a 1924 visit by major leaguers Babe Ruth and Bob Meusel who played an exhibition game in the park during a barnstorming tour by rail that stopped in Dunsmuir.
This railroad town is used to welcoming visitors. Amtrak’s Coast Starlight stops there, daily. Visitors can dine in an opulent dining car at the Dunsmuir Railroad Park Resort, or stay overnight in one of several cabooses (much warmer and inviting than described in the previous post).
The sound of the Dixiana’s mournful steam whistle piercing through the redwoods and resounding off surrounding hills is one that’s dear to my heart.
I worked for a year at the Roaring Camp Railroads in Felton, in the redwood forested Santa Cruz Mountains. My office was an ancient narrow-gauge caboose that sat on a siding beside the main track to Bear Mountain and near the historic Welch grove of redwoods, the first preserved in California.
The first hour of each morning was spent getting the caboose warm by stoking its tiny iron stove with small splits of wood, the cabin filling with the smells of smoke, printer’s ink and hot coffee. We wore mittens and sweaters inside until the first shafts of sunlight would find their way through the chilly redwood canopy to warm the car.
By the time the chug and toot of the approaching Dixiana could be heard, we were taking off sweaters and walking across freshly raked decomposed granite paths to the depot to greet arriving passengers.
In autumn, the luminescent leaves of Western sycamore, bigleaf maple and black oak that grew near the depot would litter the tine-scored paths with spots of orange, yellow and gold.
Once the Dixie departed for her journey up the mountain, her long, throaty whistle could be heard echoing through the woods as she climbed … a fond memory that is as fresh as the color seen above in the black oak canopy arching over the train.
