Natural History Wanderings

Michael Frye has a report on early fall color. See excerpt below.  Follow his blog for more updates.

Driving down to Bishop last Friday, the color didn’t look early at all. There were some yellow and lime-green aspens at the mouth of Warren Canyon (along Highway 120 in upper Lee Vining Canyon), and some lime-green trees on Parker Bench, but everything else looked dark green. Warren Canyon and Parker Bench are both high-elevation, early-changing locations, so that all looked pretty typical for this time of year.

Yesterday I drove up to North Lake and Lake Sabrina, west of Bishop. These are also high-elevation areas, and there was more color up there, but again it all looked right on schedule. The aspens around North Lake were mostly green, with some lime green and yellow on the slope above the north shore of the lake. There was more color among small aspens along the road just before the lake, and along the main road (Highway 168) near the turnoff to North Lake. At Lake Sabrina I saw a lot of orange color among the scrubby aspens above the lake, but although there was more water than last year, there’s still a large, unattractive bathtub ring around the lake (actually a reservoir). The groves between the turnoff to North Lake and Lake Sabrina were still mostly green, as were the trees around Aspendell. Overall the color looked about a week behind last year, which means it’s on a pretty typical schedule, since last year everything turned about a week early.

I also drove up Rock Creek Canyon yesterday. While North Lake and Lake Sabrina are just above 9,000 feet in elevation, the road up this canyon climbs up to over 10,000 feet, so it’s one of the best places to see early fall color on the east side. Once again, there was some color up there, but not as much as last year at around the same time.

See full article with some fall color photos from last year at Early Fall Color Report « In the Moment: Michael Frye’s Landscape Photography Blog In the Moment: Michael Frye’s Landscape Photography Blog