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I'm planning a trip to some Appalachian states this fall. I will be driving from WI and am traveling alone, I think traveling alone is nice because your at your own pace. Any ways NC is on my list, I just want to be there when the leaves change colors and are at there peak. On average when is leaf season down there? I'm planning a day or two for NC and so on so forth. I'm thinking about hitting the Blue Ridge parkway. Any must see spots there?
Too many variables to determine the peak at this point, such as altitude, rainfall, and temperature in the preceding months. My advice would be to check the posted link after Labor Day. It's updated weekly.
Check Ray"s Weather Center. He is a computer science professor at Appalachian University and always has updates on the fall colors. Great photos as well. All of the Parkway is spectacular and around Grandfather Mountain is unbelievable. That is where the Viaduct is. Linville through Blowing Rock is usually earlier color than around Asheville.
We were in Waynesville from Oct. 8-12 last year. The leaves hadn't yet turned much in town, where the elevation range is 2,500-3,000 feet, but there was a lot of color at the higher elevations on the Parkway near Richland Balsam and Waterrock Knob. Our friends up there told us that we missed the really spectacular colors by about a week. As mentioned previously, a lot will depend on temperatures and precipitation leading up to October.
Last edited by chisoxfan; 07-05-2008 at 10:09 PM..
In coming up for the autumn colors over the last 25 years. You would have a pretty good shot at peak colors sometime during the last two weeks of October. But you never can be sure. One year, our trip got delayed. Passed through NC on our way to Ohio the last week of Oct and everything was pretty much green. Came back after a week in Ohio and the leaves were turning and after a couple of more days there the color was just great. If you are trying to pin it down to a couple of days and need to plan in advance, all you can do is schedule your trip with an educated guess and hope for the best. But in coming down from WI, you ought to see some pretty good color along the way, even if it isn't peak in the mountains.
JRR gave good advice. In Asheville, leaves rarely change before the 20th and rarely continue after Halloween, altho last year they went into Nov. In the northern parts of the state, up near Boone, the change happens sooner at higher elevations. So, if you're traveling from up north, you'll get an eyefull the whole way down, if you time it to hit Asheville about the 25th maybe. Expect a lot of slower traffic in places. But the "peak" time for leaves is indeed hit and miss, and sometimes a good rain will bring them all down, and sometimes the show is more impressive one year to the next.
The entire Blue Ridge Parkway is spectacular, nice 45mph drive, some really high places, cliff-dropping curves, lots of pull-offs, broken up by more normal sorts of traveling, all two lanes...one going one way and the other going the other way. Stop at Pisgah Inn, lots of parking, quite a view, it's casual, you can eat, and you can stay there if it's not booked. There's a side road very close to the Inn that goes down towards Brevard, a couple waterfalls along there. Cold Mountain is also visible from the Inn, and then Asheville is a relatively short distance down the Parkway from the Inn. It will be a little chilly up at Pisgah, and occasionally the first snowfall in Boone is the first part of November.
Thanks for the advice gigimac, I would love to see some snow when I come down there. Don't worry I'm Wisconsin born and raised I've dealt with much much snow. How much snow does Boone get on average every winter?
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Color in the Fall
