Fall Color Report for October 4, 2025
Today, my friend Garner Dewey accompanied me on a trip to the Jefferson State Natural Area in Ashe County. This semi-isolated peak, at 4,665’ elevation just outside West Jefferson, NC, is a great place to take the family on an easy hike and has great views in all directions, depending on which overlook or portion of the trail you are at.
Garner is an exceptional photographer, and I learned a lot about the technical aspects of taking pictures, including how to focus on small objects using my Pixel phone (which for years has frustrated me). In two seconds, Garner showed me how to do that. Some of the pictures I post today are mine, and many were taken by Garner, and those are captioned with a GD.
To see the photos with captions go to The Fall Color Guy page on Facebook.
You can drive all the way to the top and then take the Rhododendron Trail and make a loop of it, for a 1.1 mile mostly level hike. At the end by Luther Rock are some great views to the north and east, and just before rock there is a view looking south toward Grandfather Mt in the distance. There are two overlooks right on the road that goes up to the top and they afford one great views.
Today, most of the forests were predominantly green, with a hint of fall colors showing here and there. There were also a good number of leafless trees on neighboring hillsides, which may be the after effect of our earlier drought. But below the summit, bare trees were scarce, so those forests still have the potential to develop good color in the next two weeks.
It’s still too warm for my liking, which is why colors are coming along slowly right now. We have had two consecutive nights with temperatures in the low 40s, which should spur things along, and next weekend and the one after that will have much better color.
The forests here remind me of those in Maryland where I grew up. They have lots of red oak (Quercus rubra), chestnut oak (Q. montana), sugar maple (Acer saccharum), red maple (A. rubrum), Striped Maple (A. pensylvanicum), Mountain Maple (A. spicatum), American beech (Fagus grandifolia), American chestnut (Castanea dentata), and Eastern and Carolina hemlocks (Tsuga caroliniana and canadensis). There can also be black gum (Nyssa sylvatica), Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum), and Serviceberry (Amelanchier canadensis). Mountain Ash (Sorbus americana), with their bright red berries, are abundant at the overlooks.
Today, much of the yellow color was due to Yellow and Sweet Birches (Betula alleghaniensis and B. lenta), beech, chestnuts and serviceberry. Sugar maples contributed to orange/red colors, while the understory striped maples had large, yellow leaves. Most of the oaks were still green (they tend to change late in the season), but a few were starting to show some red here and there. Huckleberry bushes (or high bush blueberry, or some other species) at the top were a deep red today.
Next week, I may head up to Doughton Park to see if the color is developing there. The week after, I’ll try to visit Linville Falls, gaining access from the parking lot off Rt. 105 on US Forest Service land. The main road to the falls and visitor center is closed due to damage from Hurricane Helene.