Colorado Fall Colors Photos 2021

East Beckwith Mountain

The Colorado fall colors season of 2021 delivered all of the right ingredients to make exemplary fall colors photos, but not every year is so. To transcend mediocre photos, you simultaneously need vivid colors, dramatic clouds, good light, and the first snow to paint the mountain tops white. These conditions typically align only once every few years. For example, 2020 brought fantastic colors, but boring bluebird skies. In such years photographers simply turn to compositions that don’t rely on the sky, like Aspens in the forest or abstract shapes waiting to be teased out of nature.

In other years excitement runs high when snow is in the forecast, but is then dashed when it arrives on the wings of a windy storm that blows the leaves down before they’ve even peaked. Though I shoot fall every year, most of my best fall colors shots were taken in only a handful of exemplary years over the past decade.

: In full bliss shooting sunset in the San Juan Mountains.

Sept 26 through Oct 5 are typically the ideal dates to catch peak fall colors in the Colorado mountains. The best Aspen stands and biggest mountains in Colorado occur in the West Elk Mountains (Crested Butte) and the San Juan Mountains (Ridgway, Ouray, Telluride, Silverton). It’s efficient to begin your Journey around Crested Butte and follow the wave of peak colors south into the San Juan Mountains for the second half of your trip.

If you begin farther north in Rocky Mountain National park, the colors typically begin the second week of September. I don’t concentrate on this area for photographing fall colors because it lacks large aspen stands. However, if you don’t make it to Colorado often and land in Denver, it makes sense to make the northerly detour to RMNP before you head to Crested Butte, especially at this time of year to observe the Elk rut.

I began my trip on Sept 25 in the Crested Butte area. After 6 days I went south to the San Juan Mountains, beginning in Ridgway, then making my way down to Telluride, and further down Hwy 550. Normally the San Juan Mountains begin to peak in color at this time, but in 2021 they were mostly still green by the first days of October. In fact, the San Juan Mountains had an extended fall colors photography season in 2021 that lasted an additional week past when I had to return home.

: Traversing Ophir Pass

: A tranquil camping spot

Time for a hot shower with an improvised tile floor

As always, I live out of my truck while photographing fall colors in Colorado. I use a minimalist setup that keeps my truck nimble over tough terrain, and low-profile when camping. I sleep on a 2″ memory foam mattress topper. The mattress lays on a self-built, raised deck, and I sleep in a -30 F hunting sleeping bag. Beneath the elevated wooden deck is where I store my gear. All this is crammed beneath a Soft-topper. There’s no room to sit up or stand in this setup so I change my clothes outside of the truck.

For cooking I bring a propane camping stove, a pot, and a cooler full of ingredients to make hearty stews and breakfasts. An 8 gallon water jug serves as running water. I actually take regular hot showers by filling my 5 gallon solar shower bag with hot water from public restrooms when I drive through towns. I then just have to find a discrete spot in the forest to hang the shower bag from a tree. Ubiquitous Natl’ Forest camp sites are perfect for this since they’re usually empty by day. Since I’m always either shooting or on the go, I can never actually warm the shower bag for hours in the sun as intended.

This camping arrangement is sustainable for about 2 weeks before it becomes too dusty, encrusted with mud and cramped. But during that time, shooting out of a well-stocked, light truck is a freeing experience. It allows me to navigate any terrain, camp on-site where my next shot is, and remain independent from hotels and towns. It’s a true Rocky Mountain experience.

: Comfort Sandwich: 1)Pillows 2)Warm canvas sleeping bag 3)Memory foam 2″ mattress 4)Raised cargo deck

I’ve picked my best photos from the 2021 Colorado fall colors photography season. Most of these photo spots are well known and I’ve named them. A few of them are not and will remain unnamed because the increase in human population and social media have vastly changed the world since I began photographing.

You can order my Colorado fall colors photos as prints, delivered to you:

Don’t see the print you’re looking for on Etsy? Send me your request.

: East Beckwith Mountain

: Mt. Sneffels

: Finding an aspen stand with red is coveted, and even more so when all of the colors of fall are present at once.

: On this morning the fall colors were their best in a few years, and the clouds were good also, but too many. To the east they were blocking the sun, and it didn’t look like they would lift during the precious few moments of sunrise. Then just for a few moments the light cracked through and painted the mountain honey gold.

: Ophir Pass is an easy jeep trail for off-road beginners, or those with modest 4×4 vehicles, but still delivers a thrill and spectacular views. It’s also a nice shortcut between the Telluride area and The Million Dollar Hwy (550).

: The Dyke off Kebler Pass Rd. is low hanging fruit, but I’ll shoot it if there’s good light while I’m passing by.

: This panorama image is composed of 5 stitched photos of the San Miguel Mountain Range in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains.

: West Elk Mountains

: I set up to shoot East Beckwith Mountain at sunrise, but the clouds covered the peak and didn’t lift until 10:30 am. Until then it rained, sleeted and snowed, and didn’t look like it would let up. Then as if the gloom was merely paper thin the whole time, the clouds and sleet quickly burned off within 5 minutes and were replaced by sunshine. Fortunately, it had been snowing the whole time on East Beckwith Mountain and left a nice frosty top.

: Gothic Mountain in golden aspen fall colors

: While I was photographing a lake in Marble, Colorado during a gloomy early morning, this inquisitive Red Fox paid me a visit. I had to switch my settings and lens fast enough to capture her before she disappeared back into the brush.

: I’ve taken this shot many times over the years, but this is the first time that all necessary elements of a good fall colors photo came together at once.

: Don’t believe any photographer that sells his work who tells you his photos aren’t photoshopped. Like all of my photos, in this one I’ve sharpened, increased shadow exposure, and decreased highlight exposure. The water color, however, is every bit of this spectacular turquoise in person.

: I first stumbled upon these dancing aspens in 2008 while hiking around looking for some ponds that I saw from the road. Since then they’ve gotten thicker and the foliage has grown in such that you can no longer see the mountains in the background. Theory has it that a landslide, or more likely, avalanche bent these trees low to the ground when they were saplings, or at least much younger and still flexible. If the snow remained for long enough to put long-term pressure on the trunk, or the tree was bent severely enough in the initial event as to not recover, the bend became permanent as the top of the tree continued to grow straight up.