Planning Colorado trip mid September

[al olson]

Nice photo of Engineer Pass (or thereabout), Sergei. Was that on the east side? I find the colors more interesting compared to Cinnamon Pass which always seems barren to me. Did you do Cinnamon and American Basin as well?

We have reports from some of our locals, who have been up to Lake City and Creede area, that the Aspens and Cottonwoods are already changing color.

We are expecting that the trees will be turning around here, Pagosa Springs, by next weekend since that area is always about a week ahead of ours. We are already seeing some Cottonwood change. That puts this year's leaf change about 10 days ahead of the usual schedule.

[DennisD]

last Saturday, past Engineer Pass (so i would say about 8k height)


Autumn creek by Sergei Rodionov, on Flickr

Sunny slopes were all in colour.. Shady ones - still kept green.

Fair warning - its getting kinda nippy at night times already If you feel like camping.. Also that area had notices about recent bear attacks. Which i personally don't believe (i met them nose to nose many times and never been attacked - they always were more of curious/afraid type), but .. something to think about if you feel otherwise.

Hi Sergei,

Thanks for the color-full image ! I'm planning to be there next week, so it appears there's much to look forward to based on your preview !

Dennis

[SergeiR]

Nice photo of Engineer Pass (or thereabout), Sergei. Was that on the east side? I find the colors more interesting compared to Cinnamon Pass which always seems barren to me. Did you do Cinnamon and American Basin as well?

We have reports from some of our locals, who have been up to Lake City and Creede area, that the Aspens and Cottonwoods are already changing color.

We are expecting that the trees will be turning around here, Pagosa Springs, by next weekend since that area is always about a week ahead of ours. We are already seeing some Cottonwood change. That puts this year's leaf change about 10 days ahead of the usual schedule.

yup, Pagosa was still pretty green, when i was passing, which is odd, seeing that its on sunny side and fairly high - even going over Wolf Creek pass was seriously green.

I didnt do Cinnamon this year (i generally dont like it all that much, and it was turning into twilight by time i got to Lake City, so i just shrugged and drove towards Moab), and skept Ophir as well (which is fairly barren on both sides, till you really go down).

Wish i could go to Keystone in about 2 weeks, it should be blazing with colours, but alas - it takes a bit too long to get there, plus there is only so much i can safely do with Forester Subaru, and me Xterra is in no shape to do anything right now.

[Kodachrome25]

After a weeklong assignment in DC, my wife and I headed out to Ouray, Silverton and then Telluride over the weekend, it looked great, lots of great color over Ophir pass. But yesterday was the best at home, snow atop the peaks, infrared in my new 6x12 back. Then I woke up this morning to head out and low and behold, the crap is back....smoke filled skies once again ruin our Colorado air.

This has been far and away the very worst air quality I have seen in this state in 20 years, easily on par with Riverside County, Ca....:-(