Aspens, Cottonwoods, and Willows are making their yearly metamorphosis from green to yellow, gold, and orange. Along the Front Range, oak, alder, maple, and ash trees explode with hues of yellow, orange, red, and maroon. It is a spectacular site! Over the past three years of living in Loveland, I’ve made long road trips to the Million Dollar Highway for my primary fall foliage photos. It’s a jaw dropping, spectacular drive connecting Ouray and Durango. This year I decided to stay a “little” closer to home.
Posted October 1, 2025
I have to admit, the mountainsides of colorful aspens along the Million Dollar Highway are impressive. I miss making the trip this year, but I found plenty of color closer to home. Rocky Mountain National Park has a fair number of groves of aspens, but it is not known for premier foliage opportunities. A popular nearby fall drive, called “Peak to Peak”, is a good alternative . This is a 55 mile scenic drive connecting Estes Park with Central City and Black Hawk. The Peak to Peak drive can be traveled over a leisurely morning or afternoon drive. The image above was taken along the Peak to Peak drive.
This year, I made a single large “loop” heading south from Breckenridge to Fairplay, over to Buena Vista and back north to Copper Mountain. It had rained and snowed the night before I headed out, so some of the morning shots featured snow capped mountains. That “short” trip still put 430 miles on my truck!
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Gear and Settings
The photos on this page were taken with a Sony A1 body and a Tamron 35-150 lens. I had a polarizing filter ready, but never used it. I often take landscape photos using a Sigma 60-600mm telephoto lens, but didn’t need it for these photos. Most were taken in Manual Mode with Auto ISO. I left the camera set to F/8 for most of the shots and the shutter speed at 1/640th second. The resulting ISO hovered around ISO 200. With plenty of daytime light, I didn’t need a tripod for any of the images.
A brown foliage season? I’ve heard predictions that the dry, hot summer would cause leaves to turn brown instead of yellow and orange, but I didn’t see it. As I write this post, the trees in the Loveland, Longmont, and Ft. Collins are just beginning to fire up. With the wide variety of species of trees, the local foliage season lasts most of October and into November.
