“It is not too late to see the citrus salad colors we love so much near the southern shore of Lake Tahoe. GO NOW!.” Michelle Pontoni writes.
After this site had written off Lake Tahoe as Past Peak, Michelle send this report. She and Ron spent late Sunday afternoon on bikes, “enjoying some of the final color on the Lam Watah Historic Trail off Kahle Road (Stateline, NV). We found flaming orange aspen tops with yet a bit of lime and lemon nearer the ground. Most of the foliage is still hanging on in one of the groves. This is an easy trail for visitors and families with dogs, too.”
On this recommendation, CaliforniaFallColor.com is declaring the Lam Watah Nature Trail the Bike of the Week.
She warns, however, the next few days are likely the last chance to see such beauty at Tahoe, as “a cold, windy weekend is approaching, with possibly a hint of snow coming Friday evening, so Saturday could be an opportunity to see fall and winter overlap.”
That is an excellent point. Snow on fall color is gorgeous. If you’ve ever hoped to catch such a scene, head to Lake Tahoe to be there Saturday morning.
You’ll find this grove by driving east on US 50 into Nevada from South Lake Tahoe a mile to Kahle Road. Turn left into the parking lot.
Be there just as the snow storm ends and clouds break to get the best photos of snow and aspen color, then send them to us to share with those who’ll be kicking themselves for having stayed warm and cozy inside.
Quaking aspen, Lake Tahoe (10/19/20) Clayton Peoples
It’s Tahoe’s time to shine. Lake Tahoe often gets missed because it follows peak in the Hope Valley. As Lake Tahoe comes into its own, there’s still enough color in the Hope Valley to attract those looking for densely lush color. So, Lake Tahoe gets overlooked.
Color spotter Clayton Peoples, lives within striking distance (Reno), so he has the advantage of getting up to the lake fairly often and notes that Tahoe’s mix of vegetation and elevations, from lake level (6,200′) to the rim, complicate assessing peak, as a variety of tree at a lower elevation may be peaking, while a different variety, higher up, might not.
He mentions the predominant tree at lake level, the black cottonwood, which are now Patchy, as are the lake’s white and mountain alder, willows, and mountain and rocky mountain maple that grow on slopes surrounding the lake. Clayton estimates a week to two before they peak.
Quaking aspen, Lake Tahoe (10/19/20) Clayton Peoples
Yet, Quaking aspen at all elevations are peaking. A few holdouts remain, “but the majority are sporting yellow, orange, even red. Aspen near CA-89, west of Taylor Creek are holding onto their leaves better than usual, and are at full Peak. This is also true of those along Luther Pass, between Meyers and the Hope Valley,” he asserts.
And, as reported yesterday in Tahoe Nevada Peaks Red, Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park is now at Peak and glorious.
Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park, NV (10/19/20) Clayton Peoples
Aspen, Mt. Rose, NV (10/19/20) Clayton Peoples
Aspen, Lake Tahoe (10/19/20) Clayton Peoples
Aspen, Lake Tahoe (10/19/20) Clayton Peoples
Aspen, Lake Tahoe (10/19/20) Clayton Peoples
This means it’s Tahoe’s time. To see Tahoe’s aspen at their best, go now, but you can expect to enjoy seeing lots of other foliage (cottonwood, maple, alder, willows) at peak in the coming two weeks.
Lake Tahoe (6,225′) – Patchy to Peak (10-100%) GO NOW!
North Canyon, Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park (10/18/20) Phil Farrell
With peak color dropping out of the Hope Valley, Lake Tahoe is next up.
Phil Farrell hiked the four-mile length of North Canyon, in Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park, accessed from Spooner Lake.
He found Pacific aspen at peak, and estimates this will last another week, as there are some very green trees.
A quarter of the aspen have turned red, Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park (10/18/20) Phil Farrell
About a quarter of the aspen are turning red. That’s something seen throughout the Sierra. Where in previous years the trees were mostly yellow, we’re now seeing them blush.
Aspen are distributed along the full length of North Canyon, with larger groves covering theowl at its head.
North Canyon, Lake Tahoe Nevada State Park – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
http://www.californiafallcolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/logo-1.png00John Poimiroohttp://www.californiafallcolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/logo-1.pngJohn Poimiroo2020-10-19 18:08:082020-11-04 09:57:35Tahoe Nevada Peaks Red
Pond, Blue Ridge Mountains (10/11/20) Alena Nicholas
Last year, Southern California color spotter Alena Nicholas relocated to the Carolinas, but she didn’t leave CaliforniaFallColor.com and has become an eastern correspondent.
A autumn excursion through Virginia and West Virginia was her first photo safari through “The Virginias.”
Alena focused on the elements of autumn in the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains uncommon to California: vibrant red leaves, grist mills, a moonshine still, iridescent white tail deer and rain.
Grist Mill, Blue Ridge Parkway (10/18/20) Alena Nicholas
Blue Ridge Mountains (10/18/20) Alena Nicholas
Blue Ridge Mountains (10/17/20) Alena Nicholas
Still, Blue Ridge Mountains (10/17/20) Alena Nicholas
White tail deer, Blue Ridge Mountains (10/17/20) Alena Nicholas
Mabry Mill, Blue Ridge Mountains (10/18/20) Alena Nicholas
Sugar maple, Blue Ridge Mountains (10/11/20) Alena Nicholas
Pond, Blue Ridge Mountains (10/17/20) Alena Nicholas
She noticed “quite a variety of colors in the area. Also, more rolling hills and ponds,” instead of the alpine mountains and lakes she photographed in the Sierra Nevada, and noted that it rained quite often, creating a natural gray card in the sky.
Alena promises photographs from the “low country” of the Carolinas, which is reputed to have remarkable color in late October to early November.
Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia (6,683′) – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
Flume Trail, Marlette Lake State Park (10/15/20) Barry Calfee
Comedian Billy Crystal, in his impersonation of actor Fernando Llamas, used to joke, “You look marvelous, simply marvelous.”
That can be said of Lake Marlette on the east side of Lake Tahoe, presently. “It looks marvelous, simply marvelous.”
Color spotter and cyclist Barry Calfee was there yesterday and reported that the Flume Trail was lined with peak fall color between Spooner Lake and Lake Marlette.
The trail passes picturesque Spencer’s cabin, a 280-square-foot cattleman’s cabin from the 1920s to the 1960s.
Spencer’s Cabin, Lake Marlette (10/15/20) Barry Calfee
Flume Trail, Lake Marlette (10/15/20) Barry Calfee
Lake Marlette (10/15/20) Barry Calfee
Flume Trail, Lake Marlette (10/15/20) Barry Calfee
Lake Marlette (10/15/20) Barry Calfee
Flume Trail, Lake Marlette (10/15/20) Barry Calfee
Glade Creek Grist Mill, Babcock State Park, West Virginia (10/12/20) Alena Nicholas
When John Denver first sang the words to Take Me Home, Country Roads, many of us thought, “Yeah, sure … West Virginia.”
The Mountain State has long been synonymous with the backwoods … coal mines … country folk … seclusion. It has always been remote, and that remoteness led to its being discovered as a place of retreat and restoration.
West Virginia’s first tourists were the carriage trade who could afford to travel for relief from the “heat, humidity and disease of the ‘sickly season,'” Wikipedia recounts.
As early as the late 1700s, wealthy people traveled to White Sulfur Springs for their health and by the beginning of the 19th century, it was considered to be the “Queen of the Watering Places” in the South and one of the country’s first summer destinations.
There, the Greenbriar, the nation’s first golf resort, continues that tradition as one of the country’s largest and most exclusive resorts, one of several elite retreats.
Though more often today, West Virginia’s mountains, hills and forests attract down-to-earth rock climbers, skiers, hikers, backpackers, hunters, anglers and nature lovers in search of the state tree, the sugar maple.
So, when Alena Nicholas’ photograph of a West Virginia mill stream arrived, it relit images of John Denver’s words …
Almost heaven, West Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River.
Life is old there, older than the trees Younger than the mountains, growin’ like a breeze.
Country roads, take me home To the place I belong West Virginia, mountain mama Take me home, country roads.
All my memories gather ’round her Miner’s lady, stranger to blue water.
Dark and dusty, painted on the sky Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye.
(refrain)
I hear her voice in the mornin’ hour, she calls me The radio reminds me of my home far away.
Drivin’ down the road, I get a feelin’ That I should’ve been home yesterday, yesterday.
East coast color spotter Eugene Obermuller reports from Avon, Connecticut that drought adds up to early fall color in the northeast.
A resident of Yonkers, NY, Gene headed north for a fall color visit to northern Connecticut and southern Massachusetts, visiting Simsbury, CT, home of the Pinchot sycamore (Plantanus Occidentalis), the state’s largest tree with a trunk measured at 28 feet in circumference (America’s second-largest sycamore).
During Obermuller’s visit, fly fishermen were busy whipping the Housatonic and pumpkins were lined for the picking at a church in Simsbury. All part of autumn in New England.
Housatonic River, CT (10/10/20) Eugene Obermuller
Housatonic River, CT (10/10/20) Eugene Obermuller
Farmington River, MA (10/11/20) Eugene Obermuller
Sycamore, West Cornwall Covered Bridge, CT (10/10/20) Eugene Obermuller
Farmington River, MA (10/11/20) Eugene Obermuller
Simsbury, CT (10/11/20) Eugene Obermuller
Avon, Connecticut (276′) – Near Peak (50-75%) Go Now!
It almost seems like the Quaking Aspen in Michelle Pontoni’s video are waving hello. If they are, they’re doing so from Nevada’s Spooner Backcountry State Park near Marlette Lake (NV-28 and US 50).
Perhaps that’s why we love aspen so dearly. They greet us. What other tree does that?
Michelle reports that despite all the waving, very few of the aspen have lost leaves. She rates the state park as Patchy, though “there’s plenty of color and shimmer to make it worth the trip, and plenty of lime still waiting to turn.
Her images were taken from North Canyon Rd and the Marlette Lake Trail, not far from the parking area. Along the way to Spencer’s Cabin, she passed families, young couples, bicycles, strollers, and seniors out for a stroll, just missing a mama bear and her cub near the trail.
Michelle predicts that the coming weekend should be near peak (Spooner Backcountry is nearly a thousand feet higher than Lake Tahoe and fairly even with the Hope Valley). So, adding Nevada’s Spooner Backcountry State Park at South Lake Tahoe to a trip through the Hope Valley (CA-88) would package sightseeing and easy recreation.
The forests near lake level at Tahoe usually peak from mid to late October, so the Tahoe area will remain good for two more weeks, at least.
Spooner Backcountry State Park, Stateline, NV (7,150′) – Patchy (10-50%)
Lamoille Lake, Ruby Mountains (9/30/20) Clayton Peoples
With peaking areas of Inyo National Forest closed to fall color viewing and smoke returning to many areas, Reno color spotter Clayton Peoples traveled east to Lamoille Canyon in Nevada’s Ruby Mountains.
CaliforniaFallColor.com focuses on – of course – California, though we do occasionally post reports from other states and countries.
Nevada is one location we’ve only lightly addressed, though this location has, as Clayton wrote, “some relevance to our current situation in California: Lamoille Canyon experienced a devastating fire in 2018. Many worried – understandably – that it would be irreparably damaged. But, the back third of the canyon was spared and is now thriving. There are also signs of new growth in areas that burned in 2018.”
Indeed, the bleached skeletons of incinerated aspen are seen in the above photograph, near young trees.
The Ruby Mountains are within the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest which includes a small portion of Eastern California (northern Mono County). This national forest remains open. Ruby Dome, the range’s highest peak, is 11,387′. The mountains were named for the garnets found by prospectors.
Lamoille Canyon is the largest of the range’s valleys. Aspen are the principal deciduous tree growing within the range.
Lamoille Canyon, Ruby Mountains, Elko County, Nevada (9,747′) – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
