The annu­al autum­nal extrav­a­gan­za of out­ra­geous for­est col­ors has com­menced in the high coun­try, but this being 2020, there has to be some­thing unusu­al about it, right?

There is, as life­long Aspen res­i­dent Mike Marolt dis­cov­ered when he went on bike rides there this past week­end. While the aspen haven’t real­ly start­ed chang­ing there yet, he got a show he wasn’t expecting.

“Here’s the thing that’s real­ly weird: I don’t know what’s caus­ing it, but I’ve nev­er seen the under­brush like this,” said Marolt, a fourth-gen­er­a­tion Aspen­ite. “It’s blood red. It’s just incred­i­ble. I’ve nev­er seen under­brush — pri­mar­i­ly the oak brush and stuff like that — turn this red. It was so bril­liant yes­ter­day on the trail between the air­port and Snow­mass — where there’s no aspen, it’s all under­brush — that I had to slow down and take a look. It was crazy cool.”

Crest­ed Butte res­i­dent Bill Coburn has noticed the same thing on the oppo­site side of Pearl Pass, describ­ing under­brush there as “crazy red” while tree col­ors are “start­ing to take off” in that area.

“We’ve been up elk hunt­ing the last week, and sev­en days ago, there wasn’t an ounce of col­or,” Coburn said. “The cot­ton­woods down in the riv­er beds are get­ting pret­ty vibrant. It seems to me like it’s a week lat­er than nor­mal, but I’m guess­ing that by this next week­end, it would be real­ly vibrant. I’d say it’s about 25%, mean­ing sev­en­ty per­cent of the trees are still fair­ly green, 25–30% are start­ing to turn, but I would guess by this week­end it would be 70–75% turn­ing, noth­ing at their peak yet.”

RELATED: What kind of leaf-peep­ing sea­son we can expect this year

The fall col­or change typ­i­cal­ly begins in the north­ern part of the state, and Steam­boat Springs res­i­dent Cathy Wiede­mer found some great leaf-peep­ing this past week­end about 15 miles south of town. She, too, was struck by the unusu­al col­ors of the underbrush.

“The dog­woods, all the under­brush and the aspen were just on fire,” Wiede­mer said. “The scrub oak was red and orange. I think it’s maybe just before (peak), as far as the aspens go. I feel like the scrub oaks and some of the under­brush has real­ly been going, and the choke cher­ries, all are just unbe­liev­able. It was just stunning.”

In Steam­boat Springs itself, Wiede­mer said, the change in aspen col­ors has just begun. Same in Teller Coun­ty, where a Den­ver Post reporter hik­ing in Divide spot­ted under­brush turn­ing vibrant shades of yel­low as aspens begin to turn.

Some areas near the Front Range are already see­ing dra­mat­ic col­or change, accord­ing to Reid Arm­strong, pub­lic affairs spe­cial­ist for the Ara­pa­ho and Roo­sevelt Nation­al Forests.

“My folks in the Grand Coun­ty area tell me the col­ors have peaked (there),” Arm­strong said. “They still have quite a bit in Gran­by, toward Grand Lake. But they did have that snow­storm, so about half the leaves went straight to brown.” Arm­strong said there were lots of brown and dead leaves along the Peak to Peak High­way as well.

“Up I‑70, it’s beau­ti­ful,” Arm­strong said. “The aspen are lighter greens, bright yel­lows, every­thing in between, and may be peak­ing by next weekend.”

That also appears to be the case in the Vail Val­ley, which has huge aspen stands on the ski moun­tain, the oppo­site val­ley slope, up toward Vail Pass and along U.S. 24 near Minturn.

“We are see­ing some of the trees chang­ing,” said Kylyn Ord, a vis­i­tor infor­ma­tion spe­cial­ist at the Minturn office of the White Riv­er Nation­al For­est. “I wouldn’t call it a peak yet, though. I’ve been telling peo­ple prob­a­bly this week­end, espe­cial­ly at our high­er ele­va­tion areas, we’ll prob­a­bly see a peak.”

Accord­ing to a fall col­ors report by the San Juan Nation­al For­est late last week, leaves were just begin­ning to change down there. Aspens around Sil­ver­ton were trend­ing toward gold, espe­cial­ly on the dri­ve between Molas Pass and Red Moun­tain Pass.

The change just start­ed in Tel­luride, accord­ing to David Hal­low­ell, an assis­tant man­ag­er at Jagged Edge Moun­tain Gear in Telluride.

“They’re def­i­nite­ly start­ing to go,” Hal­low­ell said. “I’ll bet peak is a week or two out, at least, prob­a­bly clos­er to two weeks. It seems like over the last two days, things have real­ly yel­lowed up.”

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