Sunflower Flat Trail A First Report For Plumas County
Crimson dwarf bilberry, lime quaking aspen and golden grasses are to be enjoyed along the Sunflower Flat Trail in Jonesville Canyon (Plumas County), the Chico Hiking Association reports.
The Sunflower Flat Trail passes winds through woods past Saucer Lake and Green Island Lake and is a short hike.
Sunflower Flat Trail, Plumas County – Just Starting (0-10%)
Hike of the Week: Rock Creek Lake
For the most developed color, the loop around Rock Creek Lake in southern Mono County (Eastern Sierra) gets this week’s nod as Hike of the Week. A photograph taken earlier in the week shows some of the beauty to be seen this weekend.
Though, there are plenty of other inviting trails to explore, as depicted by Will Ridgeway who hiked several trails to Lake Sherwin, at Convict Lake and at Lake Sabrina last weekend, returning with this compact portfolio of developing color. (Click photos to enlarge)
Basking in The California Sun
California journalist Mike McPhate’s blog, California Sun, is one that tells the story of our great state. He oughta know.
For years, Mike was the California Today Newsletter correspondent for The New York Times.
Now, we all know that New Yorkers just don’t get us. And, their “national” newspaper (Hey, like the storied Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and other worthy contenders don’t count!?) does even less.
So, it was refreshing that they employed a guy like McPhate who really understood that not everything about the Golden State is what you see on Hollywood-produced reality TV.
He got it, and still does, that … Dude, Autumn happens here, too.
Each autumn, Mike would call to get California’s story. I imagine many a Manhattanite sat in their bathrobes by apartment windows, slippered feet resting on satin ottomons, as they read – incredulously – McPhate’s descriptions of what happens here during autumn. (OK, we might have our misperceptions about New Yorkers, too, but then they have The New Yorker to blame for that.).
It’s a wonder The New York Times kept him employed for so long, considering the heresy he espoused from his California roost. “Fall Color in California? You mean New England isn’t the only place that has it!?” Let’s put that into a West Coast perspective. To a San Franciscan, that’s as ridiculous as believing there’s culture in Chicago. Or worse, L.A.
With his publication of California Sun, Mike McPhate no longer needs to tempt fate within his audience, particularly when he illustrates this week’s number with Elliot McGucken’s glorious image of North Lake. Yes, autumn happens in California, too, dude.
To read California Sun’s take on the five best places to bask in California’s fall colors, CLICK HERE.
Mono County Posts California’s First “Go Now!”
Jeff Simpson of Mono County Tourism is exclaiming, “What a difference a week makes!”
He has the enviable job of touring his Eastern Sierra county each week during autumn to report on the state of fall color and was thrilled to declare the first Near Peak color for California forests.
While fall color has been developing gradually elsewhere and some Peak and Near Peak color has been reported for grasses and shrubs, Mono County’s Sagehen Summit and Rock Creek Lake are the first forest areas suddenly Near Peak and predicted to fully peak within a week.
Jeff attributes the emerging peak color to colder night temperatures in the Eastern Sierra.
The perimeter of Rock Creek Lake is splashed with lime, yellow, orange and red Quaking Aspen. Follow trails around the lake and toward Hilton Creek and the Little Lakes Valley to be immersed in it.
The lower sections of Rock Creek Canyon remain Just Starting, though Jeff says a few yellow trees are found around the East Fork Campground area.
Last autumn, Sagehen Summit was a big “wow” and it appears the show has returned to Sagehen with a gradient colors to be seen, from red atop the summit, to deep orange down slope, to deep green at the base of the road.
Jeff admits that Sagehen is “still a little ripe,” but forsees improvement over this weekend.
Simpson scores a First Report (the first report posted on this site about any given location) by recommending continuing to drive Sagehen Meadows Road to “Johnny Meadows for additional groves of aspens and fall color viewing.”
Still developing are Monitor Pass, Sonora Pass, Lobdell Lake Road, Virginia Lakes and Tioga Pass. Jeff writes that “Each of these areas have great sections of color but are still too patchy for a full endorsement.”
From north to south along US 395 in Mono Çounty, here’s what you’ll see.
Walker/Coleville/Topaz
- Monitor Pass (8,314′) – Patchy (10-50%)
- Lobdell Lake Road (8,600′) – Patchy (10-50%) – Burcham Flat Rd. is now open to through traffic only, with no stopping in the Boot Fire burn area.
- Walker Canyon (5,200′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Towns of Walker & Coleville- Just Starting (0-10%)
- Sonora Pass (9,623′) – 10-50% Patchy
Bridgeport/Virginia Lakes
- Twin Lakes (7,000′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Virginia Lakes (9,819’) – Patchy (10-50%) – Approaching Near Peak.
- Conway Summit (8,143)- Just Starting (0-10%)
- Summers Meadow (7,200′)- Just Starting (0-10%)
Lee Vining
- Tioga Pass (9,943′) – Patchy (10-50%)
- Lee Vining Canyon (6,781′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Lundy Lake & Canyon (7,858′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
Benton & 120 East
- Sagehen Summit (8,139’) – Near Peak (50-75%) Go Now! – Peak color at the top with vibrant reds with yellows and greens abundant at the lower levels around the road.
June Lake Loop
- June Lake Loop/Hwy 158 (7,654′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Parker Lake (8,000′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
Mammoth Lakes
- Mammoth Lakes Basin (8,996′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
Crowley Lake/McGee Creek/Convict Lake
- McGee Creek Canyon (8,600’) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Around Crowley community (6,781′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Convict Lake (7850′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
Rock Creek Canyon
- Rock Creek Road (9,600’) – Near Peak (50-75%) Go Now! – Full peak color around the lake and in the trail heads of Hilton Creek and Little Lakes Valley. Patchy below Rock Creek Lodge and green below East Fork Campground.
Bishop Creek Is Up and Running, but Slowly
Spotty color is being seen at and above 9,000′ in Inyo County’s Bishop Creek Canyon, where Jared Smith of Parcher’s Resort near South Lake says, “the best of it is at Lake Sabrina along North Lake Rd and along the back side of South Lake.”
Fall color should improve rapidly in upper Bishop Creek Canyon in the coming week, with possible movement from Patchy to Near Peak by next weekend. Though what seems to be holding back quicker change, Jared observes, is that, “It still feels very much like summer up here.”
CaliforniaFallColor predicts that will change quickly, as colder nighttime temperatures have arrived (now sub freezing). Days remain warm (60s and 70s), meaning that the show will soon be awesome.
South Fork, Bishop Creek
- South Lake (9,768′) – Patchy (10-50%)
- Wier Pond (9,650′) – Patchy (10-50%)
- Parcher’s Resort (9,260′) – Patchy (10-50%)
- Willow Campground (9,000′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Table Mountain Camp (8,900′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Surveyor’s Meadow (8,975′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Mist Falls and the Groves Above Bishop Creek Lodge (8,350′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Aspendell (8,400′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
Middle Fork, Bishop Creek
- Lake Sabrina (9,150′) – Patchy (10-50%)
- Sabrina Approach (9,100′) – Patchy (10-50%)
- Sabrina Campground (9,000′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Groves Above Cardinal Village (8,550′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Four Jeffries (8,000′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Intake II (8,000′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
- Big Trees Campground (7,800′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
North Fork, Bishop Creek
- North Lake (9,225′) – Patchy (10-50%)
- North Lake Rd (9,000′) – Just Starting (0-10%)
LA Times Values Calif. Fall Travel
In this week’s Travel section, Terry Gardner of The Los Angeles Times travel section reported California as a “good value proposition” for autumn trips, listing budget-conscious places to stay. To read the full report, CLICK HERE.
In an earlier story, LA Times travel reporter Mary Forgione included CaliforniaFallColor.com among “Five Ways to Find the Best Leaf-peeping Times in California and the U.S.”
A First For Red Clover Valley
Red Clover Valley in the Northern Sierra is one of those colorfully named places that time forgot and man exploited.
Until 1880, it was lushly populated with a glorious riparian ecology, containing California Golden Beaver (Castor canadensis subauratus), native trout, hardwood trees, willows and sedges. Its isolation had kept it pristine and idyllic for millennia.
However, it was also a natural pen which ranchers used to graze sheep and cattle. That grazing inevitably eliminated the valley’s riparian vegetation, resulting in Red Clover Creek eroding, widening and deepening itself, the California Water Resources Agency reported in 1991.
In 2012, a proposal to restore the valley reported that Red Clover Creek’s “once-productive wet meadows (had, by then) converted to a dry sagebrush-dominated basin with minimal vegetation and little cover for fish.”
Yesterday, Dave Butler was distracted by flashes of golden color as he drove the Beckwourth/Genessee Rd. near Red Clover Valley. Quaking Aspen were turning from deep green to lime and yellow. Beauty was returning to the Red Clover Valley as autumn was approaching.
Just Starting (0-10%) – Red Clover Valley (5,400′)
Seeing Red
One of the earliest fall colors to enjoy in California’s mountains is red.
Though if you seek it, look downward. As, the red of which I write is crawling along the ground.
In the Shasta Cascade, it is the Crimson Knotweed that carpets volcanic slopes above 7,000′ in the Northern Sierra and Southern Cascade.
In the Sierra Nevada, Dwarf Huckleberry or Sierra Bilberry (Vaccinium nivictum) grows in subalpine fir forests and alpine fell fields usually between 8,000 and 12,000′, John Hunter Thomas and Dennis R. Parnell write in Native Shrubs of the Sierra Nevada.
Naturalist David Senesac hiked up into the 20 Lakes Basin of the Hoover Wilderness (Eastern Sierra) in early September to find ruby Dwarf Bilberry (Vaccinium caespitosum), “a turf height species of the blueberry family” blushing near timberline elevations in the weeks before autumn.
This plant is often red-purple in color, but ignites when backlit with light, adding vermillion vibrance and verve to its otherwise austere environs.
Peak (75-100%) – Bilberry and Knotweed
Mammoth Autumn Events Planned
The Town of Mammoth Lakes’ plans for fall festivals is absolutely Woolly! Here’s what’s ahead:
- September – Mammoth Lakes Bike Month
- September – November – Ambush At The Lake Fall Fishing Derby
- September 21-22: Mammoth Oktoberfest
- September 29: June Lake Autumn Beer Festival
- October 11-12: Mammoth Lakes Tourism Fall Color (INSTAMEET) photography meet up
For more about what’s happening in Mammoth Lakes, download a Mammoth Lakes Visitor Guide or view the online Eastern Sierra Fall Color Guide.