FOLIAGE WAITS FOR NO ONE: "Now" can be, and always has been, a powerful word among people. Someone can state that a trend is happening, and is hot and fresh and au courant, and everyone is engaging it in it "now," lest you were thinking about hanging back and seeing where it all went. But a "now" among people isn't quite as powerful, and ultimately compelling, as nature's "now." When the tides are high, they are high, when the moon is new, it is new, and there isn't a thing a person might say or do to influence such matters. Same goes for the coming of the seasons and the turning of the leaves. When peak is reached, and the crimson and golds are on "now," well... that "now" is not to be quibbled with. And Mono County, that peak-pretty, forest-lush spot in the Eastern Sierra, has called "now" on perfect fall color around Convict Lake. "Everyone's been waiting and it's as if the light switch just flipped ON" around the county, read a social media post on Monday, Oct. 13. If you're a foliage follower, you know that means changing a few plans around, maybe, and maybe getting to the trees within the week, if possible, to see them at their brightest and most burnished. And, indeed, at their now-est.
THE SPOTS TO SEEK OUT: Where should you go, if you're able to steal a day and make it up Highway 395? "...Lundy Canyon, north of Lee Vining; Rock Creek's East Fork... Convict Lake; Mammoth Lake; Conway Summit on Highway 395; and Green Creek Road/Summers Meadow, south of Bridgeport." After the recent heat waves of Southern California, leaf-peepers aplenty are looking for signs of autumn, but they don't even have to look that far. If you can't make it to Mono County, word from the California Fall Color blog is that parts of the San Bernardino Mountains are going to town. ("Town" meaning pure glittery West Coast foliage.) How's that for "now"?
