2018 Foliage Report | A Wave of Peak Color Slides South Through New England

Autumn color came on unbelievably quickly this past week, as if a graffiti artist had unleashed a million cans of spray paint overnight. I didn’t think that many areas would be peaking at the start of the Columbus Day weekend, and yet by Monday afternoon, some places were already slightly past their prime! For the throngs of visitors who had descended on northern New England that weekend, it worked out nearly perfectly. The skies were a bit cloudy, and the most popular sites were a bit crowded, but I didn’t encounter a single disappointed person. While the colors were a little late this year, folks only had to travel a bit farther north than usual to see some amazing sights.

I spent the weekend in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, taking photographs at some of the most popular sites as well as hiking to more secluded ridges, outlooks, and waterfalls. Sunday morning I was at Lower Falls on the Kanc, where I ran into a photography workshop taking long exposures of the water, a family having a picnic breakfast, and a number of people just taking it all in. The colors were near peak, the air was misty and cool, and it was all simply beautiful.

By Sunday afternoon, the full effect of the long leaf-peeping weekend was being felt. With the best colors and brightest skies lying north of the notches, traffic ground to a halt for miles along Route 93. I’d never seen it like that before, and I chalked it up to the influence of technology, with social media, GPS navigation, and better  weather reporting steering everyone to the same places.

I wondered whether this meant that the art of sauntering — with its spirit of discovery and adventure of the unplanned — had diminished. Or maybe it just meant that the Franconia Notch State Park marketing team was just that good. Either way, a few miles of this traffic jam west lay the empty but equally stunning Route 116 — and that’s the route I took home. At the end of September, fall foliage was mainly in the far north and high elevations, but a wave of peak color is now moving both south and downslope. All three northern New England states will have great options this coming weekend, as well as the higher elevations of Western Massachusetts.

While these areas are definitely running behind schedule, the colors so far have been bright. There is some variability to this, however: While in the White Mountains, I thought the colors tended to be a bit more orange than in years past, when I’d seen plenty of reds too. It seemed a more narrow palette, perhaps due to the recent lack of sunshine or the excessive late humidity. Yet friends in northern Vermont, where the air has been drier and the days sunnier, have told me they think this is the brightest, boldest show they’ve seen in many years!

2018 FOLIAGE UPDATE: WHERE TO FIND PEAK COLOR NOW

For those intent on leaf peeping this weekend, prime areas will include the northern Berkshires, southern Vermont, western New Hampshire and the southern White Mountains, and the arc of the Maine mountains over to the Midcoast. More specifically, the Appalachian Gap in Vermont, the Monadnock Region in southern New Hampshire, Tamworth in the southern Whites, and Sebago in Maine will be great targets on the map.

North Adams in Massachusetts and Acadia in Maine will also be brightening significantly, though perhaps they will not yet be at their boldest. North of this arc, where the colors were best last weekend, the foliage will begin to fade. How long the leaves last on the trees depends on many weather factors, from wind to rainfall to temperature: For instance, given its drier conditions, Vermont may lose leaves faster. (And all areas may lose leaves quickly, depending on the effects of Hurricane Michael.) Still, the colors will continue here for a few weeks, as the beeches and tamaracks turn late.

South of this arc, fall colors will be rapidly coming on. There are plenty of maples around my home on the New Hampshire Seacoast that are already bright, and many are poised to turn. Spots of color will also be found in eastern Massachusetts and northern Connecticut, though their best times still lie ahead. There’s also more of a mixed oak-and-maple forest in southern New England, so not only do the colors come in later, but they last longer too — often into early November. As always, be sure to visit NewEnglandFoliage.com for our weekly 2018 foliage forecasts and reports, as well as our live peak foliage map and everything else you need to plan your foliage trip in the region. And when you do find some color, please share it with us. Tag your Instagram photos with #MyNewEngland for a chance to be featured on our feed. We’ll see you out there!

SEE MORE: Weekend Foliage Planner 10 Best Fall Road Trips in New England Best Fall Foliage Train Tours