2009 Fall Color Report

There's a bite to the wind and spots of red and gold are starting to be seen, winter's coming and so are Alaska's elusive fall colors. Just like last year, let's try and track them as they spread from north to south.

If you find an area that is exploding with color, post a photo.

PS
rumors of my demise are highly exaggerated
Carl

As of last Thursday there really wasn't much in the way of fall colors in Denali yet - but it should be nice soon!

There were a couple of spotty trees (likely sick) that had turned yellow in Talkeetna when I was there on Saturday (8/22). Nothing to shoot though, fall color wise.


ps - Glad to hear you are still alive and kicking Carl

The fireweed is just topping out here, so we're a ways off at sea level. Won't be long before the tundra up high starts turning red, though.

Fireweed's to seed in the Interior. Leaves were just starting to turn (< 5%) on Chena Hot Springs Road. Almost all of the summer birds are gone.

Great to hear from you, Carl.

Hey Folks,

Fall looks early in Wrangell - St. Elias; though it's probably mostly stress-related, rather than actual fall color.

Cheers

Carl

It's now up to about 20% color in Interior Alaska, a little more at higher elevations. Of course, the forecast is a week of rain...

Carl makes a good point about stress-related color changes. The willow leaf miner has hammered about half of the willow species; those leaves are already dingy brown. The usually bright-yellow fall aspens are afflicted with another species of leaf miner and are not nearly as bright as the healthy leaves would have been. Happily, tundra shrubbery seems unaffected by the various pests affecting trees. Bumper crops of berries, too.

Hey Jim,

You got a good berry crop? Lucky you .. sucks around here, so far.

The hot dry weather in early summer will stress the vegetation as well, and often lead to less fall color. So I'm told.

Cheers

(the other) Carl

Seriously terrific berry crops. We've got four gallons of blueberries and four gallons of low bush cranberries in the freezer. Just like money in the bank...

mmm mmm Gonna have to bring some buckets with me to the Denali Highway next week:)

hey Jim,

I was just over in the Nabesna area - they said they too, had the best blueberry crop they can recall in 40 years. Of course, they're long gone by now.

They had some nice fall color, dwarf birch and blueberries, etc, but most of the willow, poplar, etc, hasn't really come on yet .. though what I've seen is turning a brownish yellow, as mentioned above.

Cheers

Carl

The South Fork of Eagle River was about 50% last weekend, I think it will be full on this weekend as will the Eklutna Lake area.

Just a quick report - got back from a one-on-one workshop along the Glenn Hwy east of Palmer. It's peaking right now, amazing color. Yellows (golds), reds, oranges. B E Utiful. Heading back out tomorrow probably.
If you haven't seen the recent posts, I've been posting shots from last weekends fall color drive. 900 miles in 4 days, 800+ photos. Great times, great colors.
http://sixtyonenorth.com/wp/


ps - apparently, my subscription has run out
Guess I'll have to re-up shortly...

Well this is a bit late, but maybe useful for future reference: I got back from a week up the Elliott last week and was just about at the 'good part of the downside' stage; was up the Eureka road and in the 3 days I camped out the leaves on the birches, nice bright orange, went from about 2/3 on to 2/3 off the trees. Everything else looked good too - big, bright blue blueberries - tons of them! Here in fbx now I think the post-peak browns of the birches are nice against the aspen and birch trunks (and spruce of course) dark red to brown fireweed with their fluffy white tops. Good auroras last few nights, too! Hmm, after a wet, cold, somewhat gloomy August September's been great!

I have tried to post some fall images but I am unable to do so, text works but if I add a photo, it fails to post. Is anyone else having trouble?

And so it ends... 90MPH gust expected along Turnagain Arm should strip the last trees of their leaves. It was a beautiful fall in Chugach State Park

We didn't get the forecast 70 overnight, and it might not have hit 50. Of course, the 6 1/2" of rain we got overnight stripped away any leaves missed by the wind!

Yikes, that's alot of rain. The winds weren't too bad but they did strip the leaves. It was in the 50s the last three days, all the snow up high has melted, "Indian Summer"

It rained so much that mud slides closed the main highway for over 24 hours. Nice this morning with lots of nice leaves covering the ground, but another gully washer under way right now. Mud pics anyone?