Colorado Fires
We have a trip planned in a couple weeks heading to CO for the fall colors. How bad are the fires and smoke in the Lake City, Leadville and Grand Lake areas.
Forum Discussion
I just got back last night from a week in Creede and Silverton did not make it up to Lake City but feel it would be the same. The first couple days were not bad smoke wise. From Monday on it was significantly worse some days better than others. Wind direction will play a pivotal role in the smoke plume distribution.
As Busskipper mentioned the cdot cameras can be your friend to see real world. While there is no camera in Leadville there is a multitude of them in the area. Grand lake has a camera and a couple others in the vicinity. Unfortunately the Lake City area has few cameras and the ones in the area are not positioned that well to show what you would look for but still worth looking at for sure.
As Tom mentioned a bit early in a couple weeks for color but as he also mentioned tough to say at this point totally weather dependent. I know last week I saw literately a tree or two in full color surrounded by aspen green with no other hint of color in that stand or any other stand of trees for that matter. I did notice on a couple south facing hillsides that some stands of bushes (whatever they may have been way to far away to even begin to know) were dull red or dull yellow. I rode my ATV over 200 miles last week and did not run across any dull red or dull yellow bushes on my rides just a few spots far off in the distance.
As Busskipper mentioned the cdot cameras can be your friend to see real world. While there is no camera in Leadville there is a multitude of them in the area. Grand lake has a camera and a couple others in the vicinity. Unfortunately the Lake City area has few cameras and the ones in the area are not positioned that well to show what you would look for but still worth looking at for sure.
As Tom mentioned a bit early in a couple weeks for color but as he also mentioned tough to say at this point totally weather dependent. I know last week I saw literately a tree or two in full color surrounded by aspen green with no other hint of color in that stand or any other stand of trees for that matter. I did notice on a couple south facing hillsides that some stands of bushes (whatever they may have been way to far away to even begin to know) were dull red or dull yellow. I rode my ATV over 200 miles last week and did not run across any dull red or dull yellow bushes on my rides just a few spots far off in the distance.
