DuPage County's forest preserves are bursting with color this autumn as nature's paintbrush leaves its strokes of yellows, oranges, bright reds and purples before taking a winter rest. While you'll be treated to these bold rainbows at almost any DuPage preserve, there are a few places worth mentioning that can make a fall trail hike particularly colorful and rewarding.
Maple trees offer the most dazzling colors of the season.
Maple Grove Forest Preserve in Downers Grove and Meacham Grove Forest Preserve in Bloomingdale are probably the best places in the country for beautiful color displays because of their abundance of maple trees. They're the ones with the stunning golds, oranges, reds and purples. You should also consider the rest of the preserves, which are predominantly oak, providing an array of browns, rusts and reds. Fullersburg Woods in Oak Brook, Waterfall Glen in Darien and Pratt's Wayne Woods in Wayne are a few to check out. While cooler fall weather signals to us that the seasons are changing, it is actually the shorter days that bring about the change in color.