We started at South Falls, where the bigleaf maple that appears in almost every autumn shot of South Falls was in full color.
The vine maple in the park was quite lovely...
... but 75% of the bigleaf maples hadn't turned yet.
Lower South Falls:
Lower North Falls:
I have no pictures of Middle North Falls, although it looked beautiful. I think it's weird and irritating that the park built a platform viewing deck for pitiful little Drake Falls, but they couldn't do the same for Middle North. You have to stand on the trail to see it and photograph it, holding up traffic on a busy Saturday like this one. When we arrived, there was a photographer taking pictures, and several people with point-and-shoots waiting their turn, and another photographer coming down the trail with a tripod. Even people not taking pictures just wanted to get a look and were stopping. There was no room; it was a bottleneck. I don't blame the hikers, I blame the State Park for not setting up a viewing area. Anyway, I hate crowds and I hate standing around waiting my turn to take a picture, so I told Greg I'd meet him further up the trail and skedaddled.
At Twin Falls, which of course can't be seen from the trail, Greg waded across the creek above the falls to get a picture from the other side. I have no evidence of his adventures to show you since it may be Christmas before he gets around to processing these photos; you'll have to use your imagination.
And finally, North Falls. I was losing steam and we skipped Upper North.
It was a nice day for a hike. Although cloudy for most of the day, it never rained (yay!) and the temperature was mild. The fall colors were pretty, although I do wish that more of the maples had turned yellow. It would be really pretty if they all turned yellow at the same time.
Ten years ago to the day.