For those of us who chase aspen color in the Sierra Nevada every fall, speculating about the potential of the upcoming aspen season is an annual obsession. Will the season start early or late? Will the colors be spectacular or less so? How will the past season’s weather affect it? What are the early signs telling us? When will the peak arrive and when will the show be over?

I’ve been playing this game — with enthusiasm! — for some years now. A few years back I think I finally figured out that I cannot really tell what will happen until it actually happens. As often as not, my “predictions” turn out to be less than perfect and/or immediate conditions (arrival of an early storm, wind, rain, etc.) throw me a curve.  The real game is in being flexible and quick to respond to evolving conditions, and to have enough experience with the subject that you have some intuitions about what to do when you encounter the conditions on the scene.

Yet, I still can’t help but look at Sierra conditions here in September and try to extrapolate forward a bit. As I make my guesses — and frankly, guesses is what they are — about the upcoming Sierra aspen season, a few things are on my mind:

• California is now experiencing the third year of a record-breaking drought, and this has an effect on all living things in the Sierra, including the aspens. I just returned from ten days in the Yosemite backcountry, with quick visits to surrounding areas, and the effects of drought are visible in many places. Although unusually wet summer monsoonal rains helped out in some area, in others there are trees that seem to be suffering from lack of water. This is bound to have an effect, which I imagine might play out as some trees going straight from green to brown (which I’ve already seen in a few places), a slightly early transition, or other effects on the actual color.
• During the past two drought years it seemed to me that the first wave of color arrived a bit earlier than usual. Two years ago I passed through the eastern Sierra on my way to fall photography in another area of the west. My plans forced me to visit some familiar eastern Sierra locations right around October 1, which is perhaps a week earlier than I might otherwise have gone there. I wasn’t expecting much color yet… but I was surprised by how good the color was. I cannot say that this will happen this year, but I’m going to be ready to move a bit early if necessary.
• Some early reports are describing the appearance of interesting color already, in mid-September. Without being on the scene myself (though see the following bullet) I cannot say what this means. It seems like every year we read some reports that “the aspens are already changing!,” only to then have a fairly normal year. In fact, a few outlier trees do start to show color quite early every year — these are odd individual trees, trees growing in stressed conditions, and so forth.
• During my recent early September visit to the Yosemite Sierra, I saw many signs of the onset of autumn, the same signs I see every year: yellow leaves appearing on willows, developing carpets of red bilberry, corn lily plants transitioning through yellow to brown and keeling over, meadows turning golden brown, low water levels in lakes and streams… and, here and there, a few aspen leaves turning yellow. By far the vast majority of aspens I saw were still green as of the second week of September. But… I did see the odd yellow branches here and there, and in one area I saw a small number of trees that had already turned. What does this mean? Time will tell.
• Based on what I saw of a small number of groves, I wonder if more trees than usual may go straight from green to brown in some areas that are more stressed by the dry conditions. I saw a few groves in dry locations where it looked like this might already be happening.

While it is interesting, useful, and fun (!) to watch the evolving conditions and try to predict what will happen, it is a good idea to keep a few things in mind:

• No one knows what will happen until it happens!
• Surprises abound. An early snow storm can make high elevation trees drop their leaves… and a few days later produce glorious color at slightly lower elevations.
• Aspen colors vary throughout the Sierra due to regional variations in elevation, exposure, moisture — so what happens in one place may be quite different from what happens elsewhere.

If I had only one shot at Sierra aspen color, I would likely shoot for about the end of the first week of October — and then be flexible about where I shoot, responding to immediate weather and location variations. In a typical year you might still find some early color up high at this point with some peak colors at slightly lower elevations, but there would still be plenty of lower elevation green trees waiting to change. If your situation permits, try to remain flexible, ready to move quickly as the color begins to change.

Other aspen color resources at this web site:

• Sierra Nevada Fall Color Season – Coming Sooner Than You Think
• Photographing the Eastern Sierra Aspens: A Few More Thoughts
• Searching for Aspen Color in the Eastern Sierra – the Show Starts Soon!
• Sierra Nevada Aspen Hunting and the Weather

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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