Where Autumn Comes First
This story is the first stop in Chasing Fall Through the Appalachias, our journey following autumn from its earliest color in the northern mountains to its final glow in the southern Appalachians. Our journey begins in the northern Appalachian wilderness, where summer hasn’t quite left, but autumn has already begun to arrive.
Summer isn’t over yet. Not really. Across much of Appalachia, September begins with warm afternoons, green mountainsides and the lingering feeling that summer still has a few weeks left to give. But travel far enough north, into the forests surrounding Katahdin in northern Maine, and something has begun to change.
The difference may be small enough to miss at first. A few red leaves interrupt a maple that is otherwise green. Yellow appears along the edge of another tree. The evenings arrive a little sooner. The nights carry a chill that wasn’t there a few weeks before. Autumn hasn’t taken over the forest. It is simply beginning to show through.
And this is where our journey begins.
Over the coming weeks, The Appalachian Magazine will follow autumn south through the Appalachian Mountains, from the northern forests of Maine through New England, Pennsylvania and the Blue Ridge, into the southern mountains where the season arrives much later. We aren’t chasing peak foliage. We’re chasing autumn itself, and to find its beginning, we’re heading north.
Into the North Woods
Maine’s own foliage observations document a familiar annual migration: fall color generally progresses from north to south across the state. In northern Maine, peak foliage historically arrives around the last week of September and continues into the first week of October. That means early September offers something entirely different.
This is autumn before the spectacle.
One of the roads leading us toward it is Maine Route 11, part of the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Scenic Byway and the primary highway corridor for reaching Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. Beyond the towns and settlements, northern Maine begins opening into the North Woods, a landscape of rivers, wetlands, mountains and seemingly endless forest. Eventually, above it all, rises Katahdin.
The mountain dominates this part of Maine not simply because of its height, but because of the enormous landscape surrounding it. Nearby Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument protects 87,500 acres, and roughly 90 percent of the monument is forested.
Those forests sit within the Northern Appalachian–Acadian Ecoregion, an ecological transition between the boreal forests of the north and the temperate deciduous forests farther south. That transition produces an extraordinary mixture of trees, including sugar maple, beech, yellow birch, red maple, white pine, hemlock, balsam fir, red spruce, black spruce and tamarack.
In summer, those species combine into an overwhelmingly green landscape. Then the nights grow longer, and the transformation begins.
When Green Begins to Give Way
Fall color isn’t something that suddenly happens to a forest. It unfolds. As days shorten and colder weather arrives, trees begin preparing for winter. Chlorophyll, the pigment responsible for the green we see throughout the growing season, declines, allowing other pigments within the leaves to become visible.
Yellow emerges, orange follows, and maples introduce brilliant reds. But northern Maine’s mixed forest creates another effect. Many of the spruce, fir and pine trees remain dark green while the deciduous trees around them change. The result isn’t a solid blanket of color but a growing mosaic of green, gold, yellow, orange and red.
Even one of the conifers eventually joins the display. The tamarack is unusual among conifers because it sheds its needles. Before doing so, its soft green needles turn brilliant gold.
By mid-September into early October, the National Park Service describes the forests around Katahdin Woods and Waters as a mosaic of autumn color. But we’re here before that. We’re looking for the beginning, and perhaps that’s what makes early autumn in northern Maine so interesting. Peak foliage announces itself. The beginning requires you to pay attention.
A Homeland Long Before It Was a Destination
There is another reason to slow down here. The landscape surrounding Katahdin is not an empty wilderness waiting to be discovered by travelers.
Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument lies within the present and traditional homeland of the Penobscot Nation, whose relationship with these lands and waterways reaches back thousands of years. Archaeological research conducted in collaboration with the Penobscot Tribal Historic Preservation Office has confirmed more than 11,000 years of human habitation in the region.
The rivers connecting this landscape were not barriers. They were travel routes. The plants and animals were not simply scenery. They were, and remain, part of living cultural traditions. Katahdin itself is held sacred by the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Mi’kmaq and Maliseet peoples.
For modern travelers, one of the most meaningful places to begin understanding that relationship is the new Tekαkαpimək Contact Station at Katahdin Woods and Waters. Its Penobscot name translates approximately to “as far as one can see.”
The station’s exhibits were developed from a Wabanaki worldview with guidance from representatives of the Wabanaki Nations of Maine. From an eastern gathering area, visitors look toward the rising sun and Wabanaki homelands. From the western side, the landscape opens toward Katahdin.
It is an appropriate reminder before traveling farther into these woods: wild does not mean untouched, and wilderness does not mean without history.
Finding the First Color
You don’t have to climb Katahdin, or any mountain, to experience autumn beginning here. That’s one of the things we love about this part of northern Maine. There are ways into the landscape for different travelers and different abilities.
Those wanting to experience the forest from the road can explore portions of Katahdin Woods and Waters by vehicle. American Thread Road, through the monument’s Seboeis Unit, offers forest scenery and occasional glimpses toward Katahdin.
At Lunksoos Picnic Area, travelers can stop beside the water and watch the surrounding forest reflected along the East Branch of the Penobscot River. Those wanting to walk farther into the changing landscape can explore places such as Orin Falls, Messer Pond or Barnard Mountain, where elevation opens broader views across the forest.
For experienced paddlers with their own equipment, the East Branch Penobscot offers another perspective entirely: autumn seen from the water, with the forest rising from the riverbanks. The National Park Service specifically encourages visitors to experience the changing forest in three ways: on foot, by vehicle and by water.
Each reveals something different. Up close, autumn can be a single leaf. From the road, it becomes a hillside. From the river, it becomes a reflection. From higher ground, it becomes a landscape.
This Is Still the North Woods
There is one important thing to understand before following us into this part of Maine: this isn’t a manicured scenic attraction. It’s remote country.
Roads within Katahdin Woods and Waters are largely unpaved and are shared in places with active logging traffic. Conditions can include potholes, mud and washouts, and some routes require or strongly favor high-clearance vehicles. Logging trucks always have the right of way.
Cell phone and GPS service can be unreliable. There are no food, fuel or drinking-water services throughout the monument, and restroom facilities are limited. During hunting season, hunting is permitted in designated portions of the monument east of the East Branch Penobscot River. The National Park Service recommends wearing blaze orange or other highly visible clothing when venturing onto monument lands during that period.
In other words, prepare before you go. Download maps for offline use. Check current road and weather conditions. Bring water, food and enough fuel. Know which entrance you’re using rather than relying entirely on GPS.
You can find current travel information through the National Park Service’s Katahdin Woods and Waters Plan Your Visit page. If foliage is the reason for your trip, check the Maine Forest Service Fall Foliage Report before leaving home, because autumn keeps its own schedule.
Come Before Peak
There is an understandable temptation when planning an autumn trip to ask one question: When is peak?
In northern Maine, history tells us that the greatest color generally arrives during the final week of September and into the first week of October. If your only goal is maximum color, that’s useful information. But there is something to be said for arriving earlier.
Come when most of the forest is still green, when you have to search for autumn, and when the first red maple stands out precisely because the trees surrounding it haven’t changed.
There is something intimate about witnessing a season before it becomes a spectacle. You’re not seeing the finished painting. You’re watching the first colors being put onto the canvas. Somewhere in these northern forests, that process has already begun.
Autumn Is Moving
Soon, the scattered reds will multiply. Yellow will spread through the birches. Maples will deepen toward scarlet. Gold will appear among the tamaracks while dark spruce and fir remain behind them. Eventually, the forest surrounding Katahdin will reach the brilliant crescendo people travel hundreds of miles to see.
But by then, something else will be happening. Farther south, nights will be growing colder, and the same signals will reach trees that are still green today. Color will begin moving through the mountains, across New England, through river valleys and small towns, and across farms, forests, ridges and old mountain roads. Eventually, it will reach the central Appalachians, the Blue Ridge and the southern mountains.
We haven’t come to northern Maine to see autumn finished. We’ve come to catch it beginning. Over the next three months, we’re going to follow it.
Autumn is moving south. And we’re chasing it.
Plan Your Own Northern Maine Autumn Trip
Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument:
https://www.nps.gov/kaww/
Fall Colors at Katahdin Woods and Waters:
https://www.nps.gov/kaww/planyourvisit/fall-colors.htm
Tekαkαpimək Contact Station:
https://www.nps.gov/kaww/planyourvisit/visitorcenters.htm
Directions & Road Information:
https://www.nps.gov/kaww/planyourvisit/directions.htm
Maine Fall Foliage Reports:
https://www.maine.gov/dacf/mfs/projects/fall_foliage/
Always check current weather, road conditions, closures and foliage reports before traveling into the North Woods.