2009 Fall Color Update

I plan to post an update each week from the central part of the state as we get into the fall color season. It will be several weeks, or longer, before the full blown fall arrives, but at least it has begun. Karla and I may head north this weekend to find the small color pockets. Then maybe by the Oct 24th weekend we will be seeing some good color in the Ozarks for the gathering.

This is out at Camp Robinson SAU.

Here's a dogwood starting to show some color. I tried to find a better patch of flowers, but came up short. I'll keep looking because we have some great color in the flowers and there's bound to be a dogwood or maple that will be in frame with the flowers.

This image is hundred yards away from the first image. That was about all I saw today that made me whip out the camera.

As far as I'm concerned you can post your central Arkansas pics on this thread or your own. I just want a week by week update and next Monday I'll start another update. I'm hoping someone in the northern part of the state and other states will do the same weekly update. I'm sure this will come naturaly with the normal work flow of posting, but it's just an idea for the next month.

Great idea Mike. I really love the tall grass in the first shot and that looks like some good color. From what I've seen pockets of color is a good description for most of the state. The reds are really nice in some of those pockets right now.

I found a beautiful red sweet gum at Adams Lake Access on lake Conway last Friday.

I really like the color in the first image, Mike. Thanks for the update! I'll try to post something from the northern part this weekend.

Great shots! If anyone could post updates from MO, that would be great. My hubby & I are heading to the Berryman Trail for a mountain bike race on 10/25. The area is SW of St. Louis. We're staying near Steelville and hopefully on our way down we'll make a stop at Hermann to visit some wineries

An idea: maybe you could start a fall foliage update post and Bill could make it a "sticky" post to keep at the top of the thread? This way we could keep updated on the progress of fall color throughout our region. RMNP does one for fall (and wildflowers) each year.

In Central Missouri, which is the northern edge of the Ozarks, the leaves are showing some yellow across the forest canopy. The sassafras and flowering dogwood are at their peak of color as is sumac. Black gum is out of its range here. White ash and shagbark hickory are showing color with some already dropping their leaves, at least on my property.

Sycamores are showing yellow and cottonwood trees are just turning brown which is typical for them. Oaks and maples are holding their green and won't be changing for a couple more weeks.

Mike, I believe in your first photo, the tree in the back right is sassafras, also in the second photo. There is too much orange in the leaves to be a flowering dogwood which typically has shades of purple. Plus, flowering dogwood tends to multi-branch along the trunk when open grown while sassafras holds its tree-like form. Just an observation but I could be wrong.

Best,
Don

Angela - I'll see if I can figure out how to do that - hey Wayne...

Here is a good link that reports fall color throughout Missouri:
http://mdc.mo.gov/nathis/seasons/fall/

I see Bill has moved this topic up to the top. Thanks Bill! You may want to change the title to something like "Fall Color Update" or start a new one with that title. Just a suggestion.

Best,
Don

I'm all for a new Topic on Northern Arkansas area. We can keep the central area for later when the colors arrive here.

The color is spotty this weekend in the Ozarks. One of the places that Karla and I hit was our first trip to Kings River Falls. What is the name of the 25 foot tall waterfall up the side creek? I'll add the pic later.

From the little side creek off of Kings River Falls.

Color is looking real nice right now in the Buffalo and Richland Creek drainages. The hickorys, gums, and dogwoods are peaking right now in the Upper Buffalo area. The maples are a bit of a disappointment, not as brilliant as they usually seem to be.

This shot is from the Richland/Falling Water Creek area, posted here for reference.

Last weekend the cottonwoods were starting to get some good color around Manhattan. Around Topeka this weekend, the elms & other soft trees have good color and some are almost gone, but most of the hardwoods are just starting to turn. Same story in KC area.

Friday afternoon I drove up I-540 north from Alma to Fayetteville, then northeast to Tea Kettle Falls. Lots of color in individual trees up around the Devils Den area, though the overall view was still green. The best color on the route was around Withrow Springs State Park, with a lot of reds in the dogwoods, blackgums and sassafras. The overall color around Tea Kettle Falls was still very green, though some individual plants and saplings were colorful.

Matt and I made a quick trip to Petit Jean State Park today. It is just now getting some good pockets of color. A week from now should be near or at full color. Their will be several people going up to Richland this weekend and that report will determine if we need to move the gathering south to Petit Jean. Or a decision can be made today by looking at my snapshots from this morning. http://www.pbase.com/mikehall/petit_jean_state_park

Saturday I was in the Deer area and saw a lot of great color there as well as on Hwy. 16 between Deer and Fayetteville. Around Deer there was still green, but it was less than 50% most places.

Sunday evening I drove up to Mount Magazine in the Arkansas "river valley". Colors are peaking at the highest elevations. On the road going west from the visitor center towards the lodge, there was very little green remaining. The shot above is of the north rim area, taken from a bluff near the Mount Magazine Falls area about 20 minutes before sunset.

Great color in the Lick Branch area yesterday, and along the Mulberry on 215, and on the Pig Trail north and south of Fly Gap. On Sunday, Hurricane Creek had good color, probably as good as it will be, though not as vivid as elsewhere. On Friday and Saturday, Boxley Vallley and the Upper Buffalo looked to be past peak but still with a lot of color.

Conway area starting to light up. We were at Lake Conway this morning and the cypress and looking good. All other trees in the immediate area will probably peak this weekend, including Petit Jean.

Just an observation or two about this thread this year. Unfortunately, there were no color reports between John's post about Mt. Magazine on the 19th and Randy's post on the 28th. That's nine days - plenty of time for the peak to come and go in the Buffalo area, which is exactly what happened. I think the best color in the Buffalo was predictable several days in advance, and am a little surprised that nobody knew anything about it, or if they did, kept it to themselves.

To be honest, I feel terrible that the decision was made to move the gathering to Petit Jean based on John's Mt. Magazine post, and Tim's earlier comment about "much of the color being blown away" around the Buffalo, and suggestion that we look for "fresh color." I really thought Petit Jean would be farther along than it was, and I owe everyone an apology for changing locations. I guess there's always next year...

Bill,
Fall color can always be a guess and go proposition. Personally I enjoyed the photographs from the group. And knowing this group it will be the stories told around the campfires that will be remembered a lot longer than the photographs.

Rod

Thanks Rod, I'm not trying to diminish the great time we all had at Petit Jean - it was one of the best gatherings in which I've participated. Gale and I were the last ones to leave. Some of the conversation around the campfire had to do with fall color, or lack therof, at Petit Jean, and who was going to go to Buzzard Roost to find more color Saturday morning, and how early to leave. The purpose of starting this thread was to try to take some of the guesswork out of the guess and go proposition you mentioned. There were reports from Kings River Falls, Deer, hwy. 16 to Deer, Petit Jean, Mt. Magazine, Tea Kettle Falls, Alma to Fayetteville, Devil's Den, Withrow Springs, and an early post on the Buffalo/Richland Creek area on 10/12. It just seems a little odd, that there haven't been any reports on this thread from the Buffalo area, not one, between the 12th and Randy's past peak report on Wednesday the 28th. That's kinda like no reports on Maroon Bells or San Juans on the Rocky Mountain forum.

Is this where I chime in with the reminder that a bad day in the woods photographing is better than a good day at work?

Bill, certainly no apology is necessary. You made the best decision you could with the information you had and we all had a great time. While it's a shame that you didn't have better data (or in some cases, accurate data), that's not your fault. I don't think that anyone here expects you to run around the state to find us the best place to shoot. It's not like we were paying you for a workshop or anything. I appreciate the effort you put into getting us a place and coordinating the gathering.

I do hope that your post will encourage more participation next year in the "color scouting" thread. It's not only helpful for planning a gathering, but for us out-of-staters who try to time our trips, it's invaluable.

I was back in the Lick Branch and Mulberry Valley area today, and most of the color has been beaten off the trees. It really does look like it's time to head farther south.

no need to apologize Bill. I still had a wonderful time. I came home with a few nice shots and a better idea of where the color is now. Bad decisions are just part of learning.

I had fun, enjoyed all the conversations, took some keeper images and that means a successful weakend to me. I didn't pick up on there being any friction around camp. I just returned from Petit Jean and the color is still green at the falls and the lake has shed a majority of it's leaves. I'd say we were there at peak. The valleys and hilltops will never peak at the same time. It's just a wierd spotty fall colors year with the rain causing problems.

Maybe next year we will all work better together and have a accurate report day by day. I felt that given the information that we had, that we were in the right spot. It was a base camp. You can go south or north from base camp to "shop" around.

Thanks Mike, and to everyone else that contributed to this thread. I think your take on the fall color this year is accurate. Probably too much rain for great color development, but it sure made for some nice waterfall scenes!

Just got back from an all-day trip to the Ouachitas in West Central Arkansas (Shady Lake area, Little Missouri River area, and Cossatot Falls). The big views of the mountainsides were disappointing..the hardwoods were mostly brown with some muted oranges and yellows. The understory views along the creeks were dominated by the Beech trees, which are in the middle of changing from green to yellow to brown. I hardly saw any red foliage. I don't think I said "Wow" once today.

I was in the albert pike area/shady lake area yesterday morning too. I thought there was a lot of brown and i noticed a lot of trees were bare already also, maybe from the storm last week. I didnt see many reds either, mostly green yellows and browns.

Hey Jon and John! I was also down in the area yesterday along Lake Catherine area and the fall colors appear to be over. Last Friday I made a trip up hwy 65 to Harrison and it looked like winter with the lack of leaves on the trees. I'd like to make a trip somewhere this weekend but at a loss on where to go at this point.

This was a good thread and hope it helped some of you decide where the best location at the moment was. What are some ways that we can improve this for next year or maybe for this spring? Does it need to be split up into Boxley Valley, Richland, Piney, and then south of I-40?

Just my 2 cents worth, I'd prefer to keep it as one big topic. I think a spring topic is a good idea too.

Unless some of the folks down Texas way would like to continue this thread, I plan on deleting it soon. Any reports from the Big Bend or Guadalupe areas?

Yes, fall is just now peaking in north Texas and the hill country was over the Thanksgiving weekend.

The Guadalupes peak around Halloween and Big Bend is right around Thanksgiving.

We are the last ones into fall and the first ones into spring

That actually makes it really nice here as our trees start to yellow in mid October and the last changers (bradford pears) lose their leaves the week before Christmas. So not a flash of color but a slow change.

But we are still enjoying color and I have a weekend outing for fall color planned on Saturday, December 5th.