Natural History Wanderings

Rocky Mountain Nature Photographers report on 9/15/15

 Drove Fall River Road to St Mary’s Glacier, then Guanella Pass to 285 and then over Kenosha Pass today. Fall River Road has some pockets of nice color, but still has a ways to go. Aspens looked pretty healthy. The north side of Guanella Pass all the way to the summit looked good. Still a fair amount of green aspens, but what has changed looked nice and also pretty healthy.
The lower parts of Kenosha Pass do indeed look pretty bad, but the higher peaks, especially to the east looked really nice, and should peak soon. I don’t think I’d write off Kenosha Pass just yet.

Rocky Mountain National Park, last weekend the aspens around Bear Lake are turning. Particulary the aspens that are more orangish. Some were already near peak. On the way up the Bear Lake Road, the aspens averaged about 10-20% turning, with some pockets up at highter elevations at 50%.

these webcams give a very good view of areas around Aspen/Snowmass (although not up as far as the Bells,): http://aspen.roundshot.com/power-of-four/

Checked out the Divide/Cripple Creek/Victor area today.  Long story short: At least a week from peaking. The good news: Looks to be largely fungus free.
There are pockets of color, and it looks fairly vibrant. There may be some fungus, but most of the colors looked good.  Much more green than gold. CR 81 between Hwy 67 and Gold Camp Road, including the large aspen grove at 81 & Gold Camp was all green.  CR 1 from Cripple Creek to Florissant didn’t have much to see. I drove Park County 77 from US 24 to Ute Creek Trail and agree with other observations that it looks bad there.