{"id":25500,"date":"2024-09-30T16:22:02","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T22:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-fall-foliage-near-rico-and-telluride-near-peak\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:18:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:18:52","slug":"update-fall-foliage-near-rico-and-telluride-near-peak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/update-fall-foliage-near-rico-and-telluride-near-peak\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: Fall foliage near Rico and Telluride near peak"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fall
Fall colors in the Barlow Creek area. (Matthew Tangeman\/Special to the Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re hoping to see fall colors, prime viewing time has begun.<\/p>\n

Trees on the west side of the San Juan Mountains near Dolores, Lizard Head and Telluride are a bit behind the foliage illuminating the forests around Ouray and Silverton, which are slightly past peak now.<\/p>\n

The west side trees are near peak.<\/p>\n

Year in and year out, colors generally peak on consistent dates, \u201crarely wobbling by more than a few days,\u201d according to the U.S. Forest Service website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A
A view of the fall colors from Colorado Highway 145, driving toward Rico. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In the mountains\u2019 highest elevations, trees start changing colors as early as late August. By late September and into early October, colors overtake the San Juan Mountains.<\/p>\n

Aspens, which make up 20% of the forest, shine in yellow. In the region\u2019s lower riverbeds, like the Dolores River, cottonwoods dance in yellow and orange. Up high, golden willows color the landscape along streams. Gambel oak trades its green leaves and transforms to striking and fiery reddish-orange colors.<\/p>\n

In higher elevations, the green and yellow is working together wonderfully right now, said Kyle Personett, a forester at the U.S. Forest Service.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be really good this weekend,\u201d said Personett. \u201cBut if you can\u2019t get out, it\u2019s not the end of the world. In the next two weeks, the lower elevations will be changing.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the warmer weather we\u2019re having lends itself to better, more lasting fall colors, Personett said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re experiencing what\u2019s called an Indian summer, where there\u2019s unseasonably warm temperatures heading into the fall,\u201d he said. \u201cThe weather is stellar.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some years, freak snowfall or high winds blow leaves off the trees early on. But this warm weather lets the leaves \u2013 and their color \u2013 hold on for longer, Personett said.<\/p>\n

Leaves would always be this brilliantly colored in the absence of chlorophyll, which is responsible for the green we see in spring and summer. It\u2019s also responsible for turning the sun\u2019s energy into glucose, which feeds the tree.<\/p>\n

Shorter days and cooler temperatures that autumn brings halt a tree\u2019s \u201cfood-making process,\u201d according to the U.S. Forest Service<\/a>. And so the yellows, oranges and reds overtake the once green trees.<\/p>\n

Fall screams in color. Get out and enjoy the colors as they peak the next few weeks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ouray and Silverton are past peak <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29,1309,199],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-san-juan-mountains","tag-san-juan-national-forest"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78965,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25500\/revisions\/78965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25500"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}