Fall Color Report for October 22, 2011

I’ve just come back from a weekend trip down to the Highlands Biological Station in Highlands, NC where I, along with several others (Kathy Mathews from WCU, Robert Warren from Yale School of Forestry (where I received my Masters), Jim Costa (Director of the Lab) held a workshop on the environment for secondary school teachers.  Among the things we discussed were climate change and fall color displays!  Thanks to Dana Haine from UNC-Chapel Hill for organizing this and thanks also to the teachers, who took time from their busy schedules to come all the way out to the Lab to learn about climate change and plants.  And thanks also to NASA for providing the funding that made this workshop possible.

Well, there are still great colors in the Highlands/Cashiers area.  You can view them by hiking out on Sunset Rock in Highlands or taking the short hike to the summit of Satulah Mt (also in Highlands).  The colors are shifting from bright yellows, oranges and reds, to more yellows and browns highlighted by the oaks and sourwoods.  The oaks tend to have much darker, deeper reds, or light brown colors, which gives the landscape a burnished look.

In addition to the yellow maples, there are witch hazels with yellow leaves (and yellow flowers), huckleberries with deep red leaves, and magnolias with their unusually large leaves that briefly turn yellow/green before shifting over to a nice chocolate brown.  Your best colors are going to be in valleys and protected areas because high winds took out many of the leaves on the more exposed trees on high ridges. 

Good color can be viewed on Highway 64 between Highlands and Cashiers.  Just east of Cashiers is the turn off for Gorges State Park and the leaf display should be quite nice there this coming week.  Continuing east, the colors fade out after Lake Toxaway and are not that spectacular in the Brevard area, although if you go into the Pisgah Forest adjacent to Brevard, the colors pick up again.  Prior to arriving in Brevard, you can take a drive and see good colors off of Highway 64 by taking either 215 or 107 north to Cullowhee or Canton.  Once you get to Asheville, that’s where the fall colors are really at their peak.  They should last through the week and into next weekend, but be advised that this was the peak weekend for the city.  If you take the Blue Ridge Parkway north of Asheville, the colors are nice until you get above 3,000’, at which point, most of the trees are bare, although the bright red fruits of the Mountain ash trees are truly spectacular.  Although the leaves are gone at Craggy Gardens the views downslope are nice and if you continue into the Asheville Watershed, there are pockets of bright color to be seen in the valleys and on the slopes.  Again, the best viewing times are either early or late in the day when the sun is low on the horizon, which accents the colors.

Leaf color picks up again on the Parkway just north of Little Switzerland up to the Chestoa Overlook area, at which point they fade again.  The Boone/Blowing Rock area has passed the peak and now the best colors can be seen downslope in the Wilson Creek drainage and toward Wilkesboro and Morganton.  So, for those of you heading out this week or this coming weekend, you can still find some color, particularly with the oaks, but it looks like we’re done for most of the higher elevations. 

As always, you can see my comments and photos on my fall color facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fall-Color-Guy/222437294470967) and on my own fall color page (http://biology.appstate.edu/fall-colors).  Happy Foliage Viewing!