Steens Mountain Fall Color, 2025
Every autumn for the last 18 years, I have tried to get out to Oregon's Steens Mountain to shoot its aspen color. Steens' groves always display a beautiful spectrum of red (at highest elevations), orange, yellow, and still-green colored trees. This is unlike the aspens that I have seen elsewhere in the western states, in which most or all of a grove turns a uniform golden yellow.
The change of color starts in the high 7,500' aspen groves and then typically takes about a week to progress down to the lower 6,200' canyon bottom aspens. The timing of the start can vary by 2-3 weeks, year-to-year. The first trees to turn are those that go red, then those going to orange, followed by those to yellow; and the turned leaves typically last about 1-2 weeks before falling. However, a heavy freeze or heavy wind storm can cancel the whole show at any time. Furthermore, there's no reliable forecast or typically even any internet fall foliage status reports for the area. So, you see that deciding when you should visit and predicting what you'll see is pretty much a crapshoot ... I make my best guess based on Bend's own weather & foliage and western states' foliage reports, make the 3+ hour drive and see what's showing up. I've experienced everything from magical fully-colored groves to leafless trees, and from beautiful cloud-filled skies to being totally stormed or fogged out.
(Galleries from successful previous autumn trips: 2007, 2008, 2016, 2020, 2022)
This year Martha and I decided to go the first week of October and ... we found that we were a little late for the high altitude color – we missed the reds and were on the late side for the oranges. But the canyon bottom color was close to its peak. And we experienced a full range of weather over the 2+ days: fully overcast or foggy, partly cloudy, and clear skies. In short, it was a good visit. One thing that was different was that for the first time I used my drone. Although the majority of Steens Mountain is designated either wilderness or proposed wilderness, the Fish Creek area is privately owned and therefore drone friendly (at least theoretically; I took care to take off & land only from the public loop road). So, this is first time that I returned with aerial shots and I have included 3 of those Fish Creek images in the below gallery.
We spent another day+ driving back through the Hart Mountain-Warner Valley-Abert Lake area to the west. Unfortunately, almost all of the Hart Mountain Antelope Reserve was closed due to aerial herbicide spraying for invasive weeds, but we did see some of the pronghorn while driving through.
Panoramas – Tap/click on a pano's thumbnail to show an interactive, moving panorama; use the on-screen control bar or your finger/mouse to move around:
Lake Creek Color:
Hart Mountain & Warner Lakes:
Image Gallery – Tap to view an individual image, then swipe to advance; use the top-right controls for auto play & other options (e.g, tap the curved arrow to open sharing options):
