It’ll be much more colorful in the Cowboy State going forward as Wyoming’s trees put on their fall colors for another season. The challenge is knowing when and where to go in Wyoming to see the peak colors, which can be quite complicated.
Explore Fall and Smokymountains.com have handy fall foliage maps that predict when and where Wyoming will reach peak colors. It’s not an infallible guide, but it might point color chasers in the right direction.
Meanwhile, local experts say there will be plenty to see over the next two months. It's just all in the timing.
“I think the whole Rocky Mountain area is in for a pretty decent show this year,” Shane Smith, horticulturist and founder/director emeritus of the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, told Cowboy State Daily.
‘The Peak’
Wyoming doesn’t have a lot of deciduous trees, but the ones that are here are expected to put on quite a show every year as summer transitions to fall. The timing depends on several factors, which means the fall foliage schedule differs depending on where you are.
“There’s not a week where everything turns, and I’m glad it isn’t that way,” Smith said. “It’s nice to enjoy the fall colors and weather at different altitudes and different locations.”
Color changes are determined by everything from temperature, elevation, the steady decrease in daylight and even which side of the mountains trees grow on.
“It can definitely be terrain-dependent,” said Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day. “You could get a grove of aspens that has a little bit more southern exposure and stays in the sun longer, as well as another grove on a ridge nearby that gets into shade earlier in the day. Those subtle differences can make changes in when the colors change.”
Anyone who wants to experience Wyoming's peak colors will have to hoof it across the state and make sure they’re traveling to the right places at the right time.
The Aspen Early Show
Wyoming’s first fall colors could appear as early as Sept. 10. It starts at the highest elevations of the Wind River and Absaroka ranges and throughout Yellowstone National Park with the highly anticipated aspens.
“The aspens get people excited, and they usually put on a great show,” Smith said. “They're going to be the early show because they're growing at higher altitudes. That’s where it's coldest, so that’s where the first color change occurs.”
According to Explore Fall, there should be “low color” throughout most of western Wyoming, along with the Bighorn and Snowy ranges, by Sept. 14. Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks will be smothered in “peak color” by Sept. 25.
But it won’t last long. The aspens’ peak color could be gone throughout most of western Wyoming before the end of September.
The Middle Ground
By Sept. 23, the colors of fall should be visible across the entire Cowboy State. Smith said once the aspens fade, willows and cottonwoods steal the show.
“Willows along higher-altitude riverbeds should start getting a nice yellow color after the aspens,” Smith said. “The cottonwoods provide an awful lot of enjoyable color and usually don't start turning until after the aspens are done, and there are lots of small shrubs that get nice color near wetter spots.”
Trees growing at the highest points of Wyoming should be well past their peak by the time the lower-elevation trees reach theirs. But it still won’t be a universal change because of the state’s variable latitude.
“You’ll see the peak colors occur up in Yellowstone and the northern part of Wyoming just a little bit earlier than the lower latitude areas in southern Wyoming,” Day said. “Southern Colorado and New Mexico are just starting to change in early October while the colors have already peaked further north. Latitude plays a role, and there’s quite a gradient in Wyoming.”
The cottonwoods, willows and other low-elevation trees should reach their colorful peak by Oct. 15. That’s the peak for fall color across most of central and eastern Wyoming, even if it’s almost a full month after the peak of the high-elevation aspens in western Wyoming.
“Even the street trees in our cities and towns can provide a lot of good color by then, depending on what you have,” he said. “The maples will turn a nice red, and the cottonwoods and ash trees will give you a nice yellow.”
Show Spoilers
It’ll be harder to hold onto color as October progresses. Day expects a warmer, milder fall in Wyoming, but the season's first frost and snow usually arrive sometime before Halloween.
“We usually get snow in October, and I'm expecting hard, freezing temperatures by early October,” he said.
Unpredictable frost can ruin a fall color season. Smith recalled a flash freeze that devastated trees across eastern Wyoming and the Front Range of Colorado several years ago.
“The trees weren’t ready for the sudden freezing temperatures,” he said. “It ended up killing a lot of trees and was very devastating, but hopefully, we can dodge that bullet.”
Wind can ruin fall colors, blowing the leaves off before they reach their full splendor. Fortunately, there usually isn’t much wind to worry about, at least in September.
“September is one of the months when we don’t have a lot of wind,” he said. “Winds across the state are very light or nothing, another reason why September is a good month in Wyoming.”
Summer weather can also spoil fall colors. Smith was concerned that the ongoing dry conditions might have removed enough moisture to dull the fall colors before the change starts.
“I heard the summer was fairly dry in southeastern Wyoming, and the fires raging up in northwestern Wyoming is an indication that they're running dry,” he said. “Drought can lead to bad fall colors, but excess water can do that too. There are so many variables.”
Over When It’s Over
The Wyoming window for peak fall colors is between Sept. 20 and Oct. 20. By the end of October, it’ll all be over — or will it?
There are some disparities between the fall foliage maps. Explore Fall anticipates Wyoming will be utterly devoid of color before the end of October, while Smokymountains.com predicts several counties, mainly in eastern Wyoming, will hang on to their colors until the very end of the month and possibly into November.
Neither map claims to be 100% accurate, but they share the same trend: fall color will peak in the high elevations first, between mid- and late September, followed by the peak in the low elevations before the end of October.
Day has his own assessment of when and where to find peak fall foliage in Wyoming.
“I always like to go take drives starting on the 21st (of September) and going until the end of the month,” Day said. “We might still have good colors into the first week of October, but I think the last ten days of September will be a really good time for many places in Wyoming.”
Contact Andrew Rossi at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
