ESTES PARK, Colo.—Colorado’s favorite annual show is getting good reviews even before it opens.
The late Colorado Poet Laureate Thomas Hornsby Ferrill once wrote that Colorado is a state where “life is written in water.” And that applies to the upcoming mountain show.
The late moisture that has delayed the change of colors in the high country should make it a spectacular year, says Clare Sinacori, spokeswoman for Colorado State Parks.
But don’t get impatient. “We are pretty darn green, still,” Kyle Patterson of Rocky Mountain National Park told the Greeley Tribune. “There is a little tiny bit of color changing at higher elevations, but it’s not really noticeable yet.”
Next week should be the start of the good viewing with the peak in the first two weeks of October.
That’s of course if wind doesn’t blown them off, or snow cover them.
“Leaves in some areas are just starting to change,” said Reghan Cloudman, spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service in the Canyon Lakes Ranger District, which includes the Poudre Canyon, a prime viewing site.
The best time to hear elk bugling is also a couple a weeks off.
“We are just starting to see them gather,” said Patterson. “We’ve heard a little bugling, but I think we’re still a couple weeks away.” They are hard to miss since they can sound like victims about to be killed in horror movies.
Because elks are rutting, some high country roads are closed.
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Information from: Greeley Tribune,
