The 2017 Colorado Fall Foliage Tour

October 23, 2017

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After such an incredible long weekend last Fall that was full of beautiful weather, vivid-yellow Aspen groves, and colorful sunrises and sunsets, I was unbelievably excited to hit the road again this fall to shoot the Colorado Fall foliage throughout the state. Unlike last year, I planned out specific places I wanted to hit up and shots I wanted to create. I kept an eye on Instagram to see how the foliage was doing and it seemed like it was hourly that I was refreshing the weather reports and resort web cams. From what I was seeing and hearing, the leafs seemed to be turning and the weather was looking good enough with 60% rain expected for only one day of the six plus days I had planned. It was go-time… I got the time off work, packed up, and as luck would have it, was even randomly contacted for a commercial shoot right along the route I was going anyway near Kebler Pass.

However, there turned out to be two huge flaws to my plan… First off, Colorado weather is waaaaaaay too unreliable. Within the span of 12-hours, I watched my one-day of a chance of rain turn into 40% plus chance every day with one day at 100% for the majority of the day. But whatever, that’ll mean snow on the peaks…

Secondly though, as much as I tried to read through the BS on Instagram to find “live” photos of the spots I was heading, the foliage was not peaking throughout most of the spots that I planned on hitting. I jumped the gun. In general though, it seemed like a weird year for the leafs. In past years, there was a bunch of uniformity to the foliage where everything seemed to peak at the same time and an incredibly epic fashion, but this year, there was a lot of green left that was surrounded by other groves that were either already bare or just plain dead and brown.

So over 1200 miles, I saw way too much rain and snow, while shooting a bland foliage year.

I’m already excited for next year though.