Vacation to Colorado in Fall

3rd weekend in September is the best guess every year. Kebler Pass has one of the largest Aspen groves in the world. Ohio Pass breaks south off of 12 before Kebler and it is pretty damn impressive also.

If you feel like making a longer drive. Cross Kebler and go all the way to Paonia State Park and head north on 133. Once you cross McClure Pass take a right on 3 and head down to Marble. Rent an atv there and go see Crystal Mill. In Marble eat at Slow Groovin BBQ.

From the north side of McClure Pass you are about an hour and 20 minutes to Aspen.

Not sure if they will still be running the lifts at the ski area for biking then. There are plenty of hikes to look up to see what fits your ability.

We go a few times each summer to mountain bike, paddle board and camp.

I highly suggest taking Cottonwood Pass over to and from. GPS apps will probably tell you to go over Monarch Pass then to Gunnison but that drive is longer and much less pretty.

I hunt out there every fall and in the past 10 years have only seen them really changing the last week of September once. There are always some yellow ones, but the majority of them happen after I leave the last week. I figured the first or second week of October.

ETA: this is the area from Trinidad, up to Walsenburg, over to montrose. So this would include Gunnison. They start changing earlier at higher elevations.

We did Crested Butte last week of September last year. Drove Kebler over to Aspen for a day trip. We enjoyed taking the road past Mt. Crested Butte past Gothic. There were very nice views of aspens. We had lunch at Emerald Lake, take your own.

You can hike Judd Falls as part of that day.

We stayed at Skyland Lodge. Lake Grant is just up the hill and was very easy fishing. No trees or brush to catch your fly on the cast. Rainbows took dry fly on surface. Easy and a ton of fun.