Harvest Ends, Color Begins
“Grape harvest is mostly done—but fall color is just beginning in Sonoma Wine Country,” reports Sonoma County color spotter Risa Wyatt.
“The PG&E power outage that pulled the plug on nearly 800,000 customers in Northern California in early October—including the state’s esteemed wineries—didn’t stop the 2019 grape harvest. Wineries and hard-working crews resorted to Plan B, using generators and nitty-gritty hand labor to bring in the crop. The pick should finish well before Halloween,” she reports.
“Meanwhile, the vines are just coloring up for their big fall foliage flaunt,” Lisa concludes.
California’s vines peak by variety at Durell Vineyard in Sonoma County, Pinot Noir, Syrah and Chardonnay vines will be peaking across the vineyards’ 610 acres of undulating hillsides.
- Durell Vineyard / Three Sticks Winery, Sonoma, CA – Patchy (10-50%)
Holy Trinity
Peak has arrived in the Trinity Alps.
Shasta Cascade color spotter Jeri Rangel drove through such colorful places as Coffee Creek, Eagle Creek, Trinity Center, Norwegian Meadows and the Carville Loop to find Pacific dogwood, bigleaf maple, cattails, and crabapples full of fall color along California highway 3.
Pictures she took remind me of the song “Country Road,” but that’s about West Virginia, isn’t it?
- Coffee Creek, CA-3 (3,068′) – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
Last Call: North Lake
North Lake in Bishop Creek Canyon is about to close it out.
Chien-Chang Kyle Chen was there on Saturday and sent these images of last call color.
The orange along the road remains good, but the aspen on the far side of the lake have dropped lots of leaves. A little breeze and it could all fly away.
- North Lake, Bishop Creek Canyon (9,225′) – Peak to Past Peak, YOU ALMOST MISSED IT!
Tahoe is Supposed to be Blue, not Gamboge
The tourist offices at Lake Tahoe make a big point about promoting their destination as “Blue.” In autumn, they should be promoting “Gamboge.”
That’s because vivid yellow, now being worn by the lake’s aspen and mountain maple, is Tahoe’s autumn tone.
Fall color is peaking around the lake with aspen carrying lurid yellow and lime leaves, rose hips cherry in their cheeky choice of color and mountain maple gold.
Here’s a sampling:
- Lake Tahoe (6,225′) – Near Peak (50-75%), GO NOW!
- Martis Creek (5,925′) – Peak to Past Peak, GO NOW!
Volcanic Legacy Spurts
Ocasional spurts of autumn brightness are appearing along the Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway (CA-89) in Northeast California.
Shasta Cascade color spotter Martha Fletcher pulled over to record this colorful black oak.
It is carnelian-dressed early for a black oak, which we term the Halloween tree for their bold orange and black colors, but then Halloween decorations have been in the stores since September.
- Volcanic Legacy Scenic Byway, CA-89 (7,000′) – Near Peak (50-75%) GO NOW!
Good Day to go to Court
There’s hardly ever a good day to go to court, unless you’re in Quincy.
That’s because the Plumas County Courthouse on Main St. is surrounded by peaking color, right now.
Plumas County color spotter Michael Beatley reports that landmark sycamores and maples in downtown Quincy are almost at full peak.
The same is occurring along La Porte Rd, just east of Quincy, where a centenarian sugar maple is a beautiful reason to stop to the side of the road.
In all, it’s a good day to go to court, as long as you’re heading to Quincy.
- Quincy (3,342′) – Near Peak (50-75%) GO NOW!
Etna Keeps Erupting
Fall color surrounding the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Etna continues to erupt in crimson, orange and yellow.
A variety of native and exotic trees are decorating Siskiyou County’s Scott Valley with vibrant color. They include black cottonwood, bigleaf maple, rabbitbrush, red maple and sugar maple.
First reported by Siskiyou County color spotter Laura Jean nearly two weeks ago, the color seen here is now listening to its closing hymn.
- Etna (2,936′) – Peak (75-100%) GO NOW!
Blinded to the Light
Sometimes, we’re blinded to the light, revved up by the cold, a color spotter in the night.
Paraphrasing Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics, we are often more influenced by popular belief than scientific fact.
In color spotter Robert Kermen’s case, he was blinded to the light, not knowing that it had a greater influence on fall color change than temperature.
He wrote when submitting this report, “I used to think that a leaf’s turning color was triggered by temperature or colder air flow, but when I saw this tree I knew that was only part of it. Just like fruit trees, the side that gets the most sunlight, has the riper fruit. Except that in the case of leaf coloring, the side that gets the most sunlight in the fall turns color first.”
The revelation happened when he saw this unusual tree and confirmed his “aha moment,” when he read Brent Cook’s article, How A Tree Grows.
Cook states, “If you’ve ever seen a tree that has green leaves on one side and red, orange, or yellow leaves on the other, it was probably a result of different amounts of sunlight. In the northern hemisphere, leaves that are on the southwest side of a tree will receive much more sunlight than leaves on the opposite side. Leaves near the top of a tree will also receive more sunlight than leaves at the bottom of the canopy. Consequently, phytochrome (photoreceptors) will trigger abscission (fall color) sooner in leaves getting more sunlight.”
Note that in the above photograph, the shaded side of the tree (left) is still green, whereas the side in the sunlight (right) has turned color. It’s counterintuitive, but a fact of nature. Why that is true, is not entirely clear to me.
Could it be that the sunlit side of the tree senses the change in autumn light waves sooner than that in the shade? We’ll let a dendrologist answer that.
In the meantime, the below photograph answers the question. Jeff Luke Titcomb took it from behind the fence to reveal: it isn’t one tree with two sides, it’s two trees whose canopies have merged.
It is a mystery solved to everyone’s embarrassment. Though, because of Bob’s inquisitiveness, we learned something new about the possibilities that a tree could have two fall color sides, because of light.
Bob was returning to the Northern Sacramento Valley by way of the Beckwourth Pass (5,221′) (named after legendary mountain man James Beckwourth; his is an extraordinary story) and CA-70 along the Feather River. Color is near peak throughout most of the route.
- Feather River, CA-70 – Near Peak (50-75%) GO NOW!
Waiting for the Moment
Philip Reedy sent this image of photographers standing along the east shore of North Lake waiting for sunrise.
It pays to be up early, not just to wait for the moment when a scene is lit perfectly, but also to have your choice of locations to photograph it.
Elliot McGucken said that on the day he took the photo of North Lake with clouds in a blue sky (posted here, Oct. 11), there were a lot of photogs there in the morning, but no clouds in the sky.
However, he didn’t give up. He returned that afternoon to find that clouds had formed. It so happened that he had the shore nearly to himself. The sunrise photographers that had lined North Lake, like those above, hadn’t returned.
Great photographs need not be taken exclusively during the golden hour. Photographers who take them often arrive early and stay late, as things happen not just during the golden moment, but often earlier or later.
I remember one freezing night at Tunnel View in Yosemite Valley, when I stood with other photographers, including many locals. After the sun had set, most of the photographers left, but we locals hung on for what developed to be one of the most incredible evenings ever.
The overcast, which had smothered the light broke open at just the right moment allowing pink, orange, purple and red light to turn the night sky into a fabulous, unforgettable painting.
On another bone-aching night at North Lake, I heard other photographers say “That’s enough,” and leave. But, given what I learned from sticking it out in Yosemite, I didn’t.
You only learn what you missed, when other photographers, who’d seen you there before you bailed, say, “Wasn’t that fantastic, last night?”
After hearing that a couple of times, you learn never to arrive late, leave early or stop waiting for the moment.
Lakes Basin
Often overlooked in the Northern Sierra is the Lakes Basin of Plumas and Sierra Counties.
The Lakes Basin is part of the Sierra Nevada’s and the Pacific Crest Trail runs through it. It has numerous lakes, Gold lake, Salmon Lake, Packer Lake, Upper and Lower Sardine Lake, Young America Lake and Goose Lake among the better known.
Fall color in the Lakes Basin is modest, though its hot reflections upon the lakes’ clear blue waters, along with emerald glimpses of their icy depths, are mesmerizing.
Yesterday, Plumas County color spotter Michael Beatley hiked to an old USFS lookout that overlooks Sardine Lake and reports that the area is hovering between Patchy and Near Peak with some of its aspen still fully green, while others are peaking.
- Lakes Basin (8,857′) – Patchy to Near Peak (10-75%) GO NOW!