Snow dusted dogwood and oak alike, Tuesday night in Plumas County. The overnight storm frosted foliage, but did not diminish their beauty. Peak color continues in Quincy and nearby.
Jeff Luke Titcomb went trick or treating today and sends these treats from Plumas County.
There’s lots of orange and black showing on All Hallows’ Eve in and around Quincy. Increasingly, Black oak are wearing dark orange leaves suspended from their coal-black branches. The Thompson sugar maple on La Porte Rd is still clothed in bright orange. Why, even the dogwood are dressed in their rosiest costumes. No doubt, Indian rhubarb (Darmera) remain the harlequins of Plumas County’s fall foliage.
There’s still time to enjoy the party. Just, GO NOW!
On Friday (Oct. 28), Philip Reedy drove east from Davis on I-80 to explore a favorite and little-traveled route from Truckee north to Sierraville, then west along CA 49 over Yuba Pass and back down to the Central Valley.
Phil reports that it is Past Peak in Truckee and for most of 89, though it brightens approaching Sierraville at Cold Creek. There, he captured the first frost seen this autumn, a harbinger of a winter storm that is predicted to arrive on Tuesday.
Cold Creek Campground had a mix of Peak and Past Peak color. Lurid yellow blended with chartreuse and chestnut among the aspen and cottonwood.
From Cold Creek, Phil and John, a fellow angler, headed to Packer Lake in the Lakes Basin and “hit it just at the right time.” Reedy cautions about its aspen, “but even those will be gone very soon.” If you want to get there to see/photograph peak, pack and drive up this weekend, at latest by Monday, as a week from now it’ll all be laid out, looking up at the sky.
Phil combines fall color with fly fishing photography. He grinned when saying “luckily there was a fly fisherman already on the water, just where I needed him to be.” Now, if working with models was as easy or as inexpensive.
Usually at this time in October, the Golden Chain Highway (49) from Yuba Pass to Downieville is peaking, but this year the trees were Just Starting to appear along the North Fork of the Yuba.
That means, it should be prime by the end of the coming week. Though rain and snow are forecast midweek, they won’t ruin the leaves and may “precipitate” some change, Phil suggests.
Frequent visitors to this site might recall that last year Lavezzola Creek, a few miles north of Downieville, had its glorious line of Indian rhubarb (Darmera) devastated by a late October snowstorm and its runoff. Phil reminds us, “The flows on the Yuba are currently around 100 cfs, but a year ago they hit 9,000 cfs!”
Phil last visited the area in August, finding that rhubarb “had come back with a vengeance.”
Some of their large fan-shaped leaves are irridescent, cadmium yellow and, Should Zeus be kind and they survive this week’s downpour, those leaves will be magically tinted mustard, magenta, mango, mocha, mint and maroon mats by the end of the coming week … a sight to behold.
Color spotters: head to Lavezzola Creek next weekend!
Bucks Lake and Spanish Creek in Plumas County keep going and going. Though, this is the moment to go, as peak has crested.
Color spotter Jeff Luke Titcomb reported dense stands of peaking aspen at Buck’s Lake and pastelian Indian Paintbrush (Darmera) lining Spanish Creek near Keddie on the Old Highway Road, six miles from Quincy.
There, Indian Paintbrush and golden yellow bigleaf maple dominate. Black oak throughout Plumas County are now showing their orange, red and yellow in bold contrast to their starkly black limbs.
The Plumas County seat of Quincy is one of the prettiest small towns in California and California Fall Color’s Peak of the Week.
Sharon Jiang found Quincy to be a riot of fall color on a visit this past Friday when she drove the scenic Deer Creek Highway (CA-32) from Chico to Plumas County.
At the Elam Campground, Deer Creek is lined with peaking carnelian, honey, burnt-orange and amber Darmera (Indian paintbrush).
On arrival in Quincy, Sharon was greeted by a mix of exotic flowering plum and native cottonwood dressed in carmine and goldenrod. Historic downtown Quincy blends native and exotic trees in a showy display of orange, yellow, red and green tincts.
Quincy and its surrounding fall color spots are prime now and through the coming week.
Autumn colors are sweeping throughout California as green gives way to yellow. After a hot September, temperatures have gotten significantly cooler as days shorten. Sunsets are noticeably earlier and the weather patterns throughout California are transitioning towards winter.
It is these changes that determine how colors develop. Writing for Thought.co, Tiffany Means opines in How Weather Affects Fall Color that a decrease in sunlight causes a reduction in chlorophyll (the green pigment in leaves) which in turn produces the vibrancy that California is known for.
Due to California’s vast range of climates, fall color usually starts in the Sierra and moves westward towards the coast with each passing week, however, microclimates and varying local conditions can cause fall color to greatly differ in a very small area.
Jeff Luke Titcomb demonstrates a mind-blowing example of this in Quincy, where two maples are growing side-by-side.
The pair serve as a beautiful contrast between summer and fall with one tree still fully green, and the other at peak. To see this phenomenon, visit the Quincy Airport in Plumas County now, as this show will only last a few days more.
Plumas County is just about there. Darmera are expected to Peak this week and as Jeff Luke Titcomb shows in his shots, aspen, sugar maple, coffeeberry and dogwood are approaching peak.
When you’re the smartest buck in Plumas County, what do you do on a Saturday during hunting season? You go into town and find a nice spot away from the hunters.
Michael Beatley found this trophy-sized mule deer resting behind an 1870s Victorian in downtown Quincy, a location that’s definitely out of bounds for hunters.
Fall color varies from Patchy to Near Peak in Plumas County, and should develop nicely in the next two weeks.
Indian Rhubarb (Darmera) is the northern Sierra’s signature fall color plant. At peak, its large, fan-shaped leaves turn shades of blood red, apricot, magenta, saffron, viridian and gold. They hang over streams in such profuse perfection that they appear to have been landscaped.
Plumas County color spotter Michael Beatley checked on the status of the Darmera at Oakland Camp, yesterday.
Oakland Camp is a summer camp operated by the City of Oakland for its children. Oakland Camp Road, a public access road near Quincy, passes through the camp skirting Spanish Creek whose banks are lined for several miles with Darmera.
Beatley reports that the rhubarb are Near Peak and should peak within the coming week. He also noted that Oakland Camp Road is lined with hundreds of black oak trees that have turned red, orange and yellow, providing colorful surroundings for a setting that should explode in color within the week.
While shopping for a battery-powered Jack o’ Lantern light, I pondered the meaning of All Hallow’s Eve and why it occurred.
I later found that it is the eve of a period of mourning for the dead, called Allhallowtide, that includes All Saint’s Eve (Halloween), All Saint’s Day (Nov. 1) and All Soul’s Day (Nov. 2).
I considered, “Why have we overlooked the significance of remembering those we’ve lost, turning those solemn days into a festival of frivolity?” For me, the thoughts of lost grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, parents and friends came flooding back.
Then, an email arrived with Michael Beatley’s photograph of the Meadow Valley Pioneer Cemetery which dates back to Plumas County’s founding in 1854. Though the fall color in the shot was light, the photograph’s meaning wasn’t. I realized why I’d been wondering about the meaning of the holiday and asked …
“Why have we put aside honoring and remembering those beloved and sainted forebears for a party?” And answered, “Perhaps visiting historic cemeteries in autumn might be a good tradition to layer upon the Halloween season?” It would add back something lost.
In fairness, Michael wasn’t searching for poignancy, he was looking for autumn beauty and found it beside an historic cemetery along Big Creek Road in Meadow Valley.
There, Big Creek (which runs up to Bucks Lake), said Michael, “is full of Bigleaf maple and dogwood. The creek’s Indian Rhubarb is just turning.”
Then, he said he’d happened upon Schneider Creek Road, named after a Quincy druggist from the 1880s (it seems especially just to know that a common pharmacist was remembered by having a creek named after him). It’s just off of Bucks Lake Road, found by turning left toward the UC Forestry Camp. Then, seven-tenths of a mile upstream is its small but precious waterfall made all the better by bigleaf maple, alder and dogwood that line the creek.
The scene is still Patchy, but will soon be Near Peak.
