Early October shows the foliage season around the White Mountains to be slow moving. This means a longer season but likely less vibrant colors overall.

The photos above were taken in Bretton Woods, Jefferson, Berlin, Pinkham Notch and Jackson, NH

The first week of October has been all over the foliage board so far. Both Crawford Notch and Pinkham Notches are nearing peak and should be in full-blast mode around October 7-12. Due to the warm weather in the past few weeks, foliage has been coming slowly. While this typically means a longer foliage season, it also means that the foliage is not likely to have as much of a wow factor. That certainly doesn’t mean that the foliage is not as good but just is not quite as bright as we’ve seen before.

The Bretton Woods and Twin Mountain have very faint colors more in the rusty range. A trip through on October 4 showed very few areas of vivid colors and more areas of dullish and muted throughout. Traveling up through Lancaster into Gorham, the colors began to pop more with touches of brighter colors but many areas still green.

From Gorham and Berlin into Pinkham Notch, colors were much more vibrant and with cooler weather in the forecast, these areas should be in peak form around October 7-10.

Traveling from Jackson into the Conways, colors were spotty but more vivid than what we saw north of the notches. This area gets our vote for best color so far. We will tour the ever-so-popular Kancamagus Highway and south early next week.