San Bernardino Mountains Near Peak
Southern California color spotter Alena Nicholas returned home to the San Bernardino Mountains to find the forest near peak along Rim of the World and Arrowbear Lake.
Alena promises to send more photos of Lake Arrowhead and Lake Gregory in coming days, though these already have us wishing we were there this evening to capture that sunset.
Elsewhere in Southern California, Dylan Ren photographed black oak peaking on Mt. Laguna in San Diego County.
Mt. Laguna is one of the best areas in So. Cal. to photograph black oak. A side benefit of driving the Sunrise Highway to Mt. Laguna is that an end destination is the mountain community of Julian, famous for its pies.
Near Peak (50-75%) GO NOW! – Rim of the World
Near Peak (50-75%) GO NOW! – Arrowbear Lake
Near Peak (50-75%) GO NOW! – Mt. Laguna, San Diego County
Peak Moves Down to the Owens Valley
Color spotter Shuo Li, broke away from studies as an international student to visit the Eastern Sierra just before snow fell in the high country.
Several of the areas he photographed – Conway Summit, June Lake and Mammoth Lakes – have changed significantly since he photographed them late last week, though Crowley Lake and the Owens Valley are still peaking.
Peak (75-100%) GO NOW! – Owens Valley
Snow Dusts The Shasta Cascade
Snow dusted high peaks across the Shasta Cascade today, but has left lower elevations still peaking.
Color spotter Jeff Titcomb found this contrast between snow atop Indian Head, a peak along Keddie Ridge in the northern Sierra Nevada and black oaks peaking near Greenville in Plumas County.
At Indian Falls near the Feather River, Jeff found willows still vibrant yellow.
Peak (75-100%) GO NOW! – Plumas County
High Sierra Sings Its Fall Swan Song
With snow blanketing high points throughout the Eastern and Northern Sierra, as Mono County color spotter Alicia Vennos reports, “most areas are now past peak.”
Exceptions are northern Mono County where Walker, Coleville and Topaz in the Antelope Valley “are absolutely gorgeous, right now.” and the Owens Valley.
These territories are, as Alicia describes, a “combination of pastoral ranch lands surrounded by rugged snowcapped mountains, populated with golden poplars, willows, elm and aspen, and rivers running running through it all.”
At the north end of US 395, it’s the West Walker River canyon and Antelope Valley. To the south, it’s the Owens River and Valley. Both will continue to show nice fall color for the next week or two.
This week’s snow has closed several roads and passes, including Tioga Pass (CA-120), Sonora Pass (CA-108), Monitor Pass (CA-89) and roads to Red’s Meadow, Devil’s Postpile, Lake Mary and the Mammoth Lakes Basin.
Those closures also indicate that skiing and snowboarding is about to begin. Sure enough, Mammoth Mountain has announced it will be opening a week earlier than anticipated, with lifts operating, starting on Thursday (Nov. 5).
First Report: Borrego Springs – Desert Surprise
As long as we’re desert-minded, color spotter Patricia Costa visited Borrego Springs this past weekend for the first time and reports she was “pleasantly surprised.”
Most people bypass Borrego Springs for Palm Springs, she writes, which is why “this place is sooooo nice!”
Patricia, we’ll forgive you for telling the world… or at least our readers… of the quiet beauty to be found in this special corner of Southern California, and we promise – as you requested – to “let’s keep this low, so just a few people enjoy.”
Did you read that folks, BORREGO SPRINGS! It’s BEAUTIFUL!! and UNCROWDED!!! and… Oops! We’re supposed to be keeping it low. Sorry, Patricia… we just got carried away.
Anyway, Patricia took State Highways 78 and 79 through Julian where she says there are “some very good colors already.” Between Julian and Decanso there’s more color, though give it a week or two to near peak.
Chamber’s Park at Lake Cuyamaca in Julian is showing peak yellow and red on exotics along shore, though other nearby trees are still patchy.
For those looking to drive a scenic backroad, we recommend the Sunrise Highway (S1) southwest of Julian through the Cleveland National Forest and passing Mt. Laguna, where black oak are often glowing in early November.
This is a scenic country drive in the high desert of San Diego County, not too curvy and 40 mph average along the route. You’ll find refreshing stops in Mt. Laguna and Julian. If you go, send us pictures and a report.
Patchy (10-50%) – Julian and Borrego Springs – Give it a week.
Special Report: Sedona, Arizona
Occasionally, we’ll get autumn shots from other parts of the country. This autumn, we posted one from Idaho. California is our focus, but it’s interesting to see what’s happening elsewhere, now and then, though we’ll always be true to CA. There’s just too much fall color here to start taking on the rest of the country.
However, today we receive this special report from Alena Nicholas who was in Flagstaff and Sedona, Arizona. Alena provides this postcard collection of the change of season in one of our neighboring states. So, we’re creating a new category called “Special Report” where photographs from other fall color destinations can be published.
Let’s look at what Alena discovered in The Grand Canyon State.
Avenue of the Giants Goes Gigantic
Max Forster seems to find the unlikely places for fall color, and that’s why we so like his contributions.
Last autumn, he photographed Death Valley. This November, it’s the Avenue of the Giants (US 101) in Humboldt County.
He even sends a shot of five turkeys evading being Thanksgiving Dinner by trotting into Humboldt Redwoods State Park.
While this doesn’t qualify as a First Report – since we’ve published photos and reports of this route previously – it’s pretty dang close, as Max’s photos are the best we’ve seen of The Redwood Highway.
In them, we see the redwood forest at peak with bigleaf maple all golden and the toxic tentacles of rosy poison oak climbing toward sunlight.
He also suggests these routes:
“Humboldt Redwoods State Park – The best maples can be seen along the Avenue of Giants and along Highway 101 when you can catch views of the Eel River. Poison oak creeping up the redwoods can be seen along the Avenue of Giants and Mattole Road.
“Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park – Maple lining Prairie Creek can be seen along Drury Parkway but a better option would be to hike the entire Prairie Creek Trail. As a native New Englander there’s something particularly satisfying about kicking up leaves while hiking through the forest. The Prairie Creek Trail currently scratches that nostalgia itch.
“Redwood National Park – Maple lining Lost Man Creek near Highway 101 are at peak. It’s a pleasant short drive along the road lining the creek with a couple of well placed pullouts. You can continue hiking up Lost Man Creek Trail to find more goodies. I also hiked Redwood Creek this weekend and there are tiny shows appearing amongst the evergreen. The recent rain storm missed northern Humboldt. Redwood Creek continues to be unseasonably low and can easily be forded and hiked. The maple at the northern section of the Tall Trees Grove are impressively large and currently at peak.
In particular, it’s nice to see the Avenue of the Giants going gigantic.
Peak (75-100%) GO NOW! – Avenue of the Giants
Winter Embraces Autumn at Mammoth Lakes
Winter embraced autumn at Mammoth Lakes, today.
Color spotter Alicia Vennos got out with her camera to appropriately named Snowcreek, to photograph peaked aspen leaves flocked with powder.
Rain and snow is dropping across Northern California and where red, orange and yellow color is still on the trees, the contrast is beautiful.
Peak (75-100%) GO NOW! – Mammoth Lakes
Postcard: Owens River Rope Swing Memories
Bishop color spotter Gary Young stopped by his old swimming hole, yesterday.
He sent back these images and reflections of 35 years ago, when he’d spend summer days with barefoot buddies swinging on a rope into the Owens River.
With winter approaching, boys have stopped swinging out into Owens River’s chill waters. Though, the old tree still stands where Gary remembers it, between East Line and Warm Springs Road.
Hanging from a gnarled branch, the rope swing is unmoved by the river’s still waters.
We’re glad Gary returned to that spot, just so he could share the scene and the memory of summers past.
Peak (75-100%) GO NOW! – Owens Valley
Trinity Continues to Surprise
Trinity County color spotter Jeri Rangel toured the backroads of her Shasta Cascade haunt, this past Halloween weekend, to find crabapples peaking, vineyards nearing peak and horses galloping past peaking cottonwood in spirited celebration.
Bowerman Meadow, Coffee Creek and Swift Creek, all in Trinity County, continue to develop surprising color. Travel Hwy 3 north of Weaverville (Hwy 299) to see it.
Elsewhere in the Shasta Cascade region, Shanda Ochs reports that alder and willows edging Manzanita Lake at the northwest entrance to Lassen Volcanic National Park (Hwy 44) have lost half their peak color.
Gabriel Leete sends these shots from Anderson (Shasta County) and Indian Falls (Plumas County).
Anderson River Park shows a mix of native wild cucumber transitioning from green to lime to chartreuse.
Indian Falls, along Indian Creek leading to the N. Fork of the Feather River, is edged with brilliant orange-red and yellow Indian Rhubarb along with blackberry brambles and pockets of yellow-orange willows.
Peak (75-100%) GO NOW! – Trinity County