{"id":1246,"date":"2017-10-09T02:21:34","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T02:21:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/?p=1246"},"modified":"2017-10-09T02:21:34","modified_gmt":"2017-10-09T02:21:34","slug":"climbing-for-color","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/?p=1246","title":{"rendered":"Climbing for Color"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Autumn is upon us, and that means its fall foliage time in the Appalachian Mountains once again! Now, in my October 2016 blog (<em>True Colors<\/em>, October 15, 2016) I explained why our broad leaf (deciduous) trees turned different colors, so I won\u2019t bore you with all that technical science stuff again. Nope, just some basic search tips for finding some fall colors.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0001.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1252\" src=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0001-300x147.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"147\" \/><\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0041.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1258\" src=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0041-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At this time last year, we were still living in Pennsylvania, which meant our trees were already peaking with their fall colors, since we were about 300 miles further north. But here at our new home in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, our reds, oranges and yellows are just starting to show, unless you venture to higher elevations. The Blue Ridge Mountains offer one of the most colorful and longest running fall leaf seasons in the world.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/20171008_101957.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1248\" src=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/20171008_101957-300x185.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"185\" \/><\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/20171008_102855.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1247\" src=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/20171008_102855-300x233.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"233\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0039.jpg\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1256\" src=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0039-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0012.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1251\" src=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0012-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One of the many reasons for this is due to the varied elevations, which show prime fall colors for more than a month. \u00a0Fall colors begin at the highest elevations in early October, and work their way down to the bottom in early November. So, if you\u2019re a \u201cleaf peeper\u201d like me, to find early October color, you gotta go up! By trekking to higher elevations, you\u2019re actually visiting tree level zones that are similar to forested areas much further north. This weekend that\u2019s exactly what I did-I took Big Blue and we climbed to a few locations of +\/- 3000\u2019 elevation.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0028.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1250\" src=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0028-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0036.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1255\" src=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0036-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0008.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1253 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0008-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I first traveled west to Highland County in the Alleghany Mountains, on the WV border, where I was not disappointed. The maples, oaks, hickories and birches were displaying their brilliant colors under bluebird skies. A bonus was watching several migrating hawks along Shenandoah Mountain. My second journey was right in our own \u201cbackyard,\u201d as I guided my family and my daughter\u2019s boyfriend up to Shenandoah NP for a short, but amazing, hike to the Blackrock Overview. The cloudy skies and light drizzle didn\u2019t damper our outdoor spirits, and we all enjoyed the high elevation tree colors, river of rocks and soaring (and calling) Common Ravens-it was well worth the climb, and I\u2019ll be back very soon! Enjoy!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/20171008_110901.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1249\" src=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/20171008_110901-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0019.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1254\" src=\"http:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/DSC_0019-300x180.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"180\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Autumn is upon us, and that means its fall foliage time in the Appalachian Mountains once again! Now, in my October 2016 blog (True Colors, October 15, 2016) I explained why our broad leaf (deciduous) trees turned different colors, so I won\u2019t bore you with all that technical science stuff again. Nope, just some basic &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/?p=1246\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Climbing for Color<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1259,"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions\/1259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodyoutdoors.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}