Autumn Morning At Bear Lake

It was hard to beat the rainbow of fall colors on display yesterday morning at Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. Autumn continues to run behind schedule in RMNP and here we stand at Bear Lake on October 3rd, right at peak. This is easily a week behind what I would consider typical timing for autumn peak color at Bear Lake. Expect Rocky to have great color in locations through the middle of next week. Technical Details: Nikon Z7, Nikkor 24-70mm F4 s lens

Here we sit on October 4th in Rocky Mountain National Park with fall still in full swing. A mild and moderate fall continues and theres been lots of warm days with the nights getting cooler. With only one small dusting of snow above 12,000 ft since the autumn season started in RMNP, the autumn color in the park has taken its sweet time turning over.

Frankly, I have no issue with this as its been great being able to photograph much of Rocky’s fall color with my photography tour clients later into the season than is usual. The photo posted above from Bear Lake was taken on October 3rd. I would say Bear Lake is right at peak now or maybe a tad past. Typically, I anticipate photographing Bear Lake around the 22nd of September to take advantage of the best color. At nearly 9500 ft above sea level, Bear Lake is one of the first areas of Rocky Mountain National Park in which the aspens start to change.

Over a week past the anticipated timing of peak at Bear Lake and the colors look awesome still. Lower elevations of the park area really starting to come into their own as well now. About 50% of the Bierstadt Moraine has peaked and I would guess by the end of the weekend we should be looking as good as its going to get.

A caveat to all this is the forecast for the most part is calling for lots of clear skies and some windy days. I expect the wind forecast in the next few days to strip many of the leaves from the Bear Lake area but you can certainly expect to find fall colors well into next week. The early forecast for the end of the week in Rocky looks like we could see cooler temps and possibly some snow but expect good conditions with both the fall color as well as the elk rut through next week. See you out in the field!.