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Texas Fall Foliage
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Above: East Texas boasts brilliant fall
colors in late October and November.
Photo courtesy Texas Tourism
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Are you starting to dream about the feel of
a cool autumn breeze? To hear the crackle of leaves beneath your
feet? To smell the smoke of an evening campfire?
In these dog days of summer, autumn may seem
distant, but plans are already underway to give a Texas-size welcome
to fall. Small towns throughout the state are putting the finishing
touches on harvest festival plans, and bed and breakfasts are getting
ready for a peak tourism season, and hotlines are making preparations
to field questions for just where to spot the best fall foliage.
And just where do you find the best fall colors?
The obvious answer might seem to be Vermont or New Hampshire, but
a brilliant quilt of fall colors can also be found in the Lone Star
State. Unlike its northern neighbors, however, Texas doesn't have
vast displays of color but rather pockets of autumnal glory throughout
the region. "There are a lot of jewels here and there,"
points out Howard Rosser, executive director of the East Texas Tourism
Association, an agency that promotes the area that boasts the lion's
share of Texas' fall foliage.
West of Austin, the Hill Country puts on a
show of color thanks to the bigtooth maples, sumacs, sycamores,
chinaberries, and cottonwoods. These trees begin to blush with fall's
first flush as the days start to grow shorter and the nights a little
cooler. Farther west, the Guadalupe Mountains are home to the magnificent
McKittrick Canyon, where walnut, ash, oak, and the Texas madrone
color the landscape.
But the largest displays of fall foliage are
found in East Texas, thanks to brilliant dogwoods, beech, blackgum,
hickory and other hardwoods. Here you can spend a weekend camping
among a cushion of pine needles, enjoying small town festivals that
celebrate the changing season, and cruising the countryside to see
color displays that leaf peekers have reported to area hotlines.Because
Texas' displays are compact, the hotlines are especially important
for locating the best foliage.
Also in this article: Fall
foliage in:
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