Late in the fall, when many trees are bare, a sugar maple may stubbornly hold its leaves, a bonfire of red, burning in the gray landscape. Try to make the appreciation of fall colors an exercise in enjoyment as a child would enjoy them. In fact, let fall colors be only the first aspect of nature you learn to enjoy as a child would. At the end of his career, after he had mastered nearly every form of painting then known, Picasso was asked if there was anything he regretted about his artistic achievements. I regret, he replied, that I can no longer paint as a child.
Hot Spots Fall colors come in according to elevation.
Around Boone, North Carolina, colors peak about two weeks into October. Colors also peak at this time along higher elevations of the Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Around the third week of October is the peak of fall color in most of the cove hardwood forest of the southern Appalachians, including Cade s Cove, Hikory Nut Gorge, and Lake Lure, Doughton Park, Roan Mountain, and the TVA lakes in eastern Tennessee. The Uwharrie Mountains of North Carolina s piedmont section may peak several weeks after the mountains of western North Carolina and Tennessee. Refer to Chapter 19 for directions to each of these locations, as well as canoe destinations for foliage colors.