Natural History Wanderings

Fall Color Report: Week of October 6, 2014 | Department of Biology | Appalachian State University. has a new detailed fall color report for North Carolina

I took a drive from Asheville all the way back to Boone on Saturday to personally check out the state of leaf colors.  The weather has been excellent recently, and the cold front that moved through over the weekend didn’t take down very many leaves, which bodes well for future color development in the region.  For most of the drive (from the Folk Art Center northward) leaves are still approaching peak, even at the highest elevations.   Based on the rate of leaf color development, I think that the next two weekends, plus the week in between, will be excellent for taking drives on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Forests are mostly still green below 3,500’.  From this elevation upwards, colors are springing out, although it depends on the slope and aspect.  The main trees showing color at intermediate elevations are sourwoods, dogwoods, Virginia creeper vines, and red maples (all peaking now and all deep red in color).  Sugar maples are starting to turn orange/yellow and beginning to stand out against the landscape.  Birches, tulip poplars and Fraser magnolias (all yellow) are all coming along.  At the highest elevations, like at Craggy Gardens, the mountain ash have dropped their leaves, the beeches (yellow) are peaking and in the understory the viburnums are at their peak orange/yellow color.

The drive between Craggy Gardens has some excellent views of fall foliage color.  If you drive to the summit of Mt. Mitchell, you’ll have superb 360 degree views.  When I was there yesterday, you could easily see Great Smoky Mountains National Park to the south, and Grandfather and Hawksbill Mountains to the north.  There were isolated ridges with good color off the summit although most of the slopes were still predominantly green.

Once you get past Mt. Mitchell and the Black Mountains, the Parkway dips a bit, and colors aren’t near as far along.  This stretch is always one the last to develop good fall color.  There are good colors again once you reach Linville, which continue all the way north past Blowing Rock and up into Ashe County, north of U.S. 421.

I thought colors were going to peak early this year, and a few trees (mainly the maples and sourwoods) have peaked early.  But now I’m going to revise my predictions because I think the majority of trees are coloring up at a normal pace.  So, in conclusion, the interval covering the next two weekends should be excellent for viewing fall foliage color here in the southern Appalachians.  So if you haven’t yet made it up to the mountains, you still have plenty of opportunities this season.  Enjoy!!

   To See Pictures, visit the Fall Color Guy’s Facebook page!