Berry Nice
Late summer/early fall is a season of berries and pine cones.
Robert Kermen reports they are creating color spots on highway 20 near Lake Spaulding in the Sierra.
On his Labor Day Weekend drive, he spotted Elderberries, California Ash and the immature cones of incense cedar (calocedrus decurrens).
Near Clair Tappaan Lodge off old US 40 (between Soda Springs and Sugar Bowl), Bitter Cherry (rosaceae) were carrying bright red berries and turning from green to gold along the trail to Summit Meadow.
This Sierra Club base camp is one of the host locations for 2 to 3-hour Art Hikes (Sept. 8/9) that include music, dance, poetry and art along the trail. Space remains available at the lodge. More info and reservations are found at ClairTappaanLodge.com.
From Truckee Meadows to North Lake Tahoe, aspen remain dark green with no evidence of black leaf spot.
Just Starting (0-10%) – Lake Spaulding – Berries and cones are decorating shrubs and trees.
Just Starting (0-10%) – Donner Pass (US 40) – Willows are turning yellow and carrying bright red fruit.
Just Starting (0-10%) – North Lake Tahoe/Truckee – Still green.
Sonora Pass Begins to Show Color
East Bay color spotter Darrell Sano didn’t expect to see much autumn color on a Labor Day weekend drive over Sonora Pass (CA 108).
He was out to explore hot springs and other volcanic terrain (of which there are plenty in the Eastern Sierra), when he began to notice patches of aspen turning bright yellow at 8,000′ in elevation on the pass.
He reported, “It was strange that the cluster of trees on the left side of the road already looked peaked and had lost leaves on one side, while across the road there were more, but appeared undamaged by wind. Could this be a small micro-climate area?”
Darrell said, the majority of the aspens were green, “but even so, when backlit by brilliant sunshine, the many graduated values of emerald green mixed with gold was all I needed to stir excitement and anticipation. Bring fall on!”
In the Bridgeport Valley along Twin Lakes Road, he passed this classic Western scene of horses grazing on meadow grasses that were warming from yellow to ochre.
Just Starting (0-10%) – Sonora Pass
Color Begins in the Meadows
In their enthusiasm to appreciate trees, color spotters often overlook meadows. However, that’s where early, delicate color is often first seen.
On a hike through Spencer Meadow in Lassen National Forest, members of the Chico Hiking Association scored a First Report (the first report for a specific location on CaliforniaFallColor.com) and found such beauty among willows and California Corn Lillies in the meadow.
Chico Hiking Association reports they plan a series of fall color hikes and will be submitting photos to document what they’re seeing on their hikes. That’s such a great idea for hiking clubs that we have designated the Spencer Meadow trail as our first Hike of the Week of Autumn.
Just Starting (0-10%) – Spencer Meadow, Lassen National Forest
Naked Ladies Seen Across North Coast
Don’t you just love headlines like this? I sure do.
Of course the Naked Ladies, of which I write, are not the kind that dance in bars. Instead, they’re a bi-generic cross of amaryllis belladonna, called Naked Ladies, that are native to South Africa and were created by the great Santa Rosa botanist Luther Burbank.
He cross-bred Amaryllis and Crinum to create the new variety, Amacrinum which has naturalized itself across the North Coast region of California.
North Coast color spotter, Walt Gabler, was driving CA-36 through Carlotta when he passed bunches of the vibrant pink flowers.
Burbank started it all, when he created the hybrid which is now an natural and expected part of the North Coast landscape.
They bloom as summer is ending, indicating that autumn is just around the corner.
So, when you see Naked Ladies in the North Coast, you are permitted to blush with excitement, as Fall will soon arrive.
Just Starting (0-10%) – North Coast – Lots of Naked Ladies (Amacrinum) are blooming throughout the North Coast region.
How Have Wildfires Affected Fall Color?
Thanks to this summer’s wildfires, it’s been hazy for a month here in the Sierra Foothills.
Haze is not unusual to the foothills. Each autumn, Central Valley rice fields and other agricultural croplands are burned to dispose of leftover straw (stubble) and control disease and pest problems. For centuries before, native people burned grasses at summer’s end, to make it easier to collect oak acorns (a principal food source).
So, hazy skies have been part of California’s late summer for thousands of years. Though this summer’s many wildfires added particulates, gasses and ash in abnormally high quantities to our normally clean skies, causing people to ask, “How have the wildfires affected fall color?”
Plant scientists say smoke both benefits and harms plants.
Benefit – Smoke or haze are the product of combustion, which means higher levels of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) can exist, compared to normal. As CO2 increases, plant growth does as well, as long as there is sufficient sunlight. Nutrients in ash from a fire benefit new growth. And, fire opens a forest, eliminating mature trees and making space for young plants.
Harm – Smoke also drops ash and other particulates that reduce photosynthesis; those can clog “stomatal pores, reducing gas exchange in the leaf,” New Mexico University scientists write. Holocaustic wildfire can devastate a forest’s ecosystem, seriously depleting endangered species.
As we reported two years ago (Death of the Sierra), 100 years of fire suppression has created a catastrophe for the forest, air quality, wildlife and humanity. This year, we ate the bitter fruit of those decisions as we watched forests in Mendocino County, Shasta County, Mariposa County and countless other locations go up in smoke.
The most evident effect of a wildfire on fall color is that it will take years for stands of most species of deciduous trees to grow back. Deciduous plants that grow near water (aspen, cottonwood, willows) are the most resilient and first to recover.
It’s been three years since an oft-photographed aspen grove near Big Bear was burned in a major wildfire. At the time, we reported that the aspen would be the first trees to recover (Burnt Aspen to Recover).
Today, we spoke with Teddi Boston at the Barton Flats Visitor Center who said that within three months of that fire, the aspen were three feet tall and they’ve recovered fast since.
However, access to this grove is limited by logging which is occurring on the one-lane road that leads to the grove. So, until the logging ends access to the aspen is blocked.
One way to see aspen in the San Bernardino National Forest is to visit its Barton Flats Visitor Center where many aspen grow near the center. We also plan to send a reporter out to the Aspen Grove at peak to photograph Big Bear’s grove since the fire.
In contrast, deciduous forests in areas overrun by this past summer’s wildfires weren’t fire-resistant aspen, and were incinerated. Most of the deciduous trees lost to this year’s fires were maple, oaks and alder, which will take years to recover.
Fortunately, as expansive as this summer’s fires were, the number of trees destroyed still represent a fraction of the entire forest. Areas that were not burned will continue to display fall color, as they have in past years. For example, Yosemite’s fires occurred mostly outside the National Park. None of the black oak, bigleaf maple, or dogwood in Yosemite Valley were damaged.
Nevertheless, color spotters have been reporting signs that haze and overcast may have reduced photosynthesis, triggering earlier displays of autumn color.
Jeff Luke Titcomb reports from Plumas County that Western Dogwood are showing early rose and Big Leaf Maple are beginning to turn yellow.
Elsewhere in Sierra Foothill suburbs, exotic Chinese Pistache are showing early change of color, becoming splashed with yellow and orange.
Offering an optimistic view is Butte County color spotter Cindy Hoover who reports, “The one thing I have really been watching are the aspen. I think this year may be a phenomenal year since there’s been so much rain. The aspen leaves are darker green this year. I can only imagine the bounty of yellow, deep gold and red they’re going to share.”
Reports like Cindy’s indicate that a normal autumn is more likely than an accellerated one.
So, do not confuse today’s reintroduction of the Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks, the feel of autumn in the air or a scattered number of trees and shrubs turning color early as proof that autumn has arrived.
Autumn has not arrived significantly earlier than in past years. Fall will happen just about as it has in previous years, regardless of the year’s many wildfires.
Inyo County Releases New Visitors Guides
If you plan to search for California’s first and finest fall color, you’ll be driving along US 395 through Inyo County.
Two guides that should be uploaded to any fall color spotter’s mobile device are the 11th Edition Visitors Guides to Inyo County and Death Valley.
These just-released travel guides are chock full of great tips, fascinating stories and all sorts of invaluable travel planning info. Follow these links to see them:
KCET Continues Coastal Trail Series
Premiering tonight and continuing through summer, KCET airs six new video segments on its website, kcet.org/coastaltrail
The Web series explores the majestic California Coastal Trail; its past, its present and its future through historical narratives, camping and hiking guides, social media videos, and articles about important cultural points of interest along the Trail.
One new video per week will be posted on kcet.org/coastaltrail from July 6 to Aug. 3. The Web series will also be available on Roku and YouTube.
CALIFORNIA COASTAL TRAIL debuted three summers ago with the first year following the trail from San Diego to San Luis Obispo County. Then, in season two, it continued up the trail to Monterey, Santa Cruz and San Mateo.
Although there is little fall color to be enjoyed along the California Coastal Trail, we reasoned,
“What better way for fall color spotters to enjoy the outdoors and discover new areas of California in summer than exploring the California Coastal Trail?”
Partially funded by The California Coastal Commission, with support from Hilton Hotels, and presented in partnership with Rigler Creative, CALIFORNIA COASTAL TRAIL will share the state’s picturesque coastlines designed for a wide variety of audiences, including visiting tourists, casual vacationers and seasoned California outdoor enthusiasts.
This season’s segments head north passing through Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte Counties while looking at spots along the coast like Pelican Bluffs, Noyo Headlands Park and the Humboldt Bay Trail.
The series will also travel to Crescent City, site of a deadly tsunami in 1964 and explore redwood restoration at Del Norte Redwoods State Park.
The series takes viewers to a mill site that was converted into a coastal park in Fort Bragg and MacKerricher State Park, home of the endangered Snowy Plover.
Here’s what’s planned:
Fri., July 6 – Pelican Bluffs
Fri., July 13 – Noyo Headlands Park
Fri., July 20 – Haul Road
Fri., July 27 – Humboldt Bay Trail
Fri., Aug. 3 – Del Norte Coast
Fri., Aug. 10 – Crescent City Harbor Trail
Join the conversation on social media using #myCAcoast.
California Fall Color Is Named Best Internet Site
CaliforniaFallColor.com was awarded Best Outdoor Internet Site in the recent Outdoor Writers Association of California 2017 Craft Awards.
A photo of fallen apples shot at Apple Hill in Camino was also awarded a First Prize for Best Outdoor Feature Photograph and CaliforniaFallColor.com took Second Place honors as the Best Outdoor Medium in California.
Every contributor and reader shares in these honors by helping to make the site what it is.
Earth Day Wildflowers
It was a beautiful Earth Day weekend to be out enjoying California’s spring wildflowers.
In the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma counties, the last of late winter’s yellow mustard blossoms have given way to populations of poppies, lupine and all varieties of colorful wildflowers, between the vines, along their edges, beside roadways and on open land.
The colorful springtime display, particularly showy in areas where last fall’s wildfires opened overgrown woodlands to wildflowers, has been nourished by the nutrients left behind by the fires. This will be one of the best years to see big displays of wildflowers because of last fall’s wildfires.
Western Wildflower lists 17 trails in Napa County to hike for dazzling displays of flora. One of California’s best areas is the Missimer Wildflower Preserve, a protected native grassland. Across its acres of open meadows grow several species listed by the California Native Plant Society as endangered, including the narrow-leaved daisy, Napa western flax, Colusa lavia and yellow Mariposa lily, Calochortus luteus.
Sonoma County Tourism lists 10 Great Wildflower Walks with a colorful array of orange poppies, deep blue iris (now in bloom), purple lupine, white woodland stars, yellow columbine, pink shooting stars, golden fairy lanterns, red larkspur and lavendar clarkia (June) splashed throughout Sonoma County.
In Sierra Nevada foothills, orange, red and golden California poppies are at their most glorious anywhere grassy slopes face the southern sky. The South Fork of the Merced River, from Mariposa to Yosemite National Park along CA-140 is considered to have one of the best shows, though the upper areas of the Merced River Canyon peaked in mid March.
HIKE OF THE WEEK – The 6.5-mile Hite Cove Trail, leading from Savage’s Trading Post (midway between Mariposa and Yosemite) is spectacular right now with profuse displays of wildflowers growing beside the trail.
If you plan to hike this famed wildflower trail, start early and carry a large bottle of water – you’ll need all of it. The trail is moderate to strenuous, though it has a bonus if you make it to the end… an abandoned mine.
When you capture great images of California’s wildflowers, send them to us and we’ll post them here.
Fall Color Begins in Spring
Many deciduous trees are budding out with blossoms and new foliage, providing for a fresh and colorful spring show.
This Eastern redbud tree (exotic) in our side yard is now flocked with magenta blooms, while Western redbud shrubs in Sierra foothill canyons are carrying rose blossoms.
Although this website is dedicated to fall color, what happens in autumn begins in spring.
So, if you see similarly bright spring foliage, email images to us and we’ll publish them here. editor@californiafallcolor.com