Seasonal · Updated weekly through peak
We don’t run a satellite. This fall foliage map is our read on where the color is worth a drive this weekend — pulled together from the major 2026 forecasters and matched to the drives and trails we’d actually point you toward. As of the week of September 22, the season is landing in the postcard places: the high Rockies and northern New England.
The map · where color stands this week
The short answer
As of late September 2026, fall color is peaking now in the Colorado high country, Grand Teton, and Minnesota’s North Shore, and peaking this weekend across the Adirondack High Peaks and northern New England’s high country. The Upper Peninsula, the North Cascades, and the West Virginia highlands are just getting started and hit their stride in early-to-mid October.
The foliage status board · week of Sept 22–29, 2026
Go this weekend: the five strongest bets
1. Colorado & the Southern Rockies. The aspens are gold right now in the 9,000–11,000-foot band. Local reports put Crested Butte and Aspen at peak this week. Chase altitude first: Kebler Pass holds one of the largest aspen stands in North America, and Independence Pass and the Dallas Divide are close behind.
2. Grand Teton, Wyoming. Valley aspens and Snake River cottonwoods are banded gold and red. Be at Oxbow Bend for sunrise, then drive Gros Ventre Road and Antelope Flats.
3. Adirondack High Peaks, New York. The High Peaks around Lake Placid and Keene are about a quarter turned and climbing fast into the weekend. The Whiteface Veterans’ Memorial Highway and the Cascade Lakes on Route 73 are the payoff drives.
4. Northern New England. The far north and the high country lead: the upper Kancamagus Highway in New Hampshire, Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, and Maine’s Height of Land above Rangeley. The classic valley peak is still a week or two out, so go high.
5. Minnesota’s North Shore. The inland maple hills are at peak red-orange now. Hike Oberg Mountain, drive the Gunflint Trail out of Grand Marais, and follow Highway 61 past Tettegouche and Gooseberry Falls.
Almost there
Three regions are worth a plan for next weekend rather than this one. Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula (Brockway Mountain Drive) colors first in the Upper Peninsula but broadly peaks in early October. Washington’s alpine larches — Washington Pass, Maple Pass — are a first-two-weeks-of-October event; only the very highest stands show gold now. And in the West Virginia highlands, only the 4,000-foot ridges (Dolly Sods, Spruce Knob, Canaan Valley) have turned, with broad peak still mid-to-late October.
How to time a leaf trip
Three rules that beat any map
- Chase elevation. Color drops the mountain roughly 1,000 feet every few days, so high passes and summits peak one to two weeks before the valleys below. Go high early in the season, lower as October goes on.
- Favor north- and east-facing slopes. They cool first and turn a few days ahead of warm south faces. Cool nights plus sunny days make the most vivid reds.
- Go early and just as a region enters peak. Morning light on water (Oxbow Bend, the North Shore lakes) is best, and one windstorm can strip a peak fast — don’t gamble on the tail end.
This year’s wildcard: drought out West
One honest caveat. Much of Colorado is in drought this year, and drought-stressed aspens turn earlier and drop faster — the color may be a touch duller and shorter-lived than a classic year, so don’t wait. Minnesota’s North Shore may be slightly muted for the same reason. Northern New England and the central Appalachians, by contrast, had a wetter summer and are set up for a vivid season.
Wherever you land, pack for a mountain morning and know how to find your way back to the car — here’s how to actually read a compass, and, if you’re rethinking what to carry, what Ray Jardine got right. Chasing color this weekend? Tell us where you went in the comments.
Sources & live trackers, refreshed weekly: Old Farmer’s Almanac, New England.com, I Love NY foliage report, Minnesota DNR Fall Color Finder, Grand Teton NPS, and Explore Fall.
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