Fall foliage season shaping up to be beauty

A private site offers weekly forecasts in seven color categories: www.smokymountains.com/fall-foliage-map/

Best Georgia State Parks for fall color

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources identifies the state’s 13 best parks for seeing fall foliage, including:

Amicalola Falls State Park. Featuring the Southeast's tallest cascading waterfall, it's located just one hour north of Atlanta. Dawsonville.

Cloudland Canyon State Park. Visitors can take a staircase hike to the bottom of the canyon. Near Chattanooga.

Smithgall Woods State Park. Overnight guests can take a private to trail to Dukes Creek Falls. Helen

Tallulah Gorge State Park. Hike along the rim to view the gorge, or get a permit to hike to the bottom. Near Clayton.

Black Rock Mountain State Park. Georgia's highest state park at an altitude of 3,640 feet. Clayton.

For the full list and more information, go to www.georgiastateparks.org.

Metro area hikes

Despite its high-rise buildings and congested highways, Atlanta still has a lot of trees that put on their own fall color show. Here are five great metro Atlanta hikes for fall.

Stone Mountain Park. Walk-up trail open dawn till dusk; gate hours vary. Vehicle entry fee $10; pedestrian entry free. U.S. 78 East, Exit 8, Stone Mountain. 770-498-5690, www.stonemountainpark.com.

Sweetwater Creek State Park. 7 a.m.-sunset. $5 entrance fee. 1750 Mount Vernon Road, Lithia Springs. 770-732-5871, www.gastateparks.org/sweetwatercreek.

Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area. Palisades Unit. Open dawn till dusk. Daily fee $3. For specific directions to the Cobb and Fulton county entrances, visit the website. 678-538-1200, www.nps.gov/chat.

Big Creek Greenway. Multiple access points in north Fulton. Open during daylight hours; no fee. www.bigcreekgreenway.com.

Big Trees Forest Preserve. Located next to the North Fulton Annex Government Service Center at 7645 Roswell Road. Open sunrise to sunset; no fee. www.bigtreesforest.com.

Blake Guthrie, for the AJC

For 30 years, Marc D. Abrams has meditated on the mysteries of the woodlands and the mystical magic of autumn. So he was asked where he would go for that maximum feasible foliage experience. His answer was as disappointing as it was unsurprising.

“That is a tough one because I have seen great colors throughout New England, Upstate New York … and down the Appalachian Mountains to Virginia and North Carolina,” said the professor of forest ecology at Pennsylvania State University.

I was holding out hope for that miraculous revelation, a hint of an undiscovered jewel, but I guess a few million of us would give roughly the same answer.

Autumn in the East is an enchanting experience, what the late naturalist Edwin Way Teale described as “the glorious, flaming sunset of the year,” a sunset that lingers for weeks, and that in recent years has been lingering longer.

My all-time favorite foliage experiences — in remote northwestern Maine and deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains — were evanescent, lasting just long enough to teach me a lifelong lesson that I, too, often have overlooked.

The prime leaf-peeping season in Georgia this year is predicted to span Oct. 10-Nov. 7, according to the fall foliage map at smokymountains.com, but the most spectacular colors should be visible in north Georgia Oct. 17-24. Look for updates throughout October at www.GeorgiaStateParks.org/leafwatch.

But a government-run site developed by at South Dakota State University might be the best source for leaf-peeping information. Using satellite data, it monitors conditions every three days and predicts what will happen 10 days out in six color-intensity categories: www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/star/news2014_201410_FallFoliage.php.

What I do always keep in mind about autumn is that we are incredibly lucky to have it. Some are saying this could all change should warming accelerate, and Abrams and others say colors have been showing up a shade later in recent years. But warming also has a benign side, extending the season, perhaps making it more colorful. And based on preseason signs, this fall is shaping up to be a beauty.

What’s behind the show?

The variations of nature’s palettes are almost endless, but autumn colors are driven by three basic pigments: carotenoids (the yellows and oranges of corn and pumpkins), anthocyanins (think cranberries and apples), and basic green chlorophyll.

Responding to autumn’s light cues, chlorophyll in deciduous trees recedes and yields to yellows and oranges. Then, as food-bearing veins at the leaf base shut off, the stranded sugars manufacture the show-stealing anthocyanins that turn leaves aflame.

It is impossible to predict just how brilliant an autumn will be in any given woods, or any given species, for that matter. But Abrams says the best colors depend on favorable weather during the growing season — that is, with adequate but not excessive rain. Too much rain is a bonanza for tree-blight parasites. Those requirements generally have been met in the East.

What happens in the next few weeks, however, also is crucial. What you want, said Abrams, is “a nice cool-down in late September through mid-October.” Warm, sunny days and cool nights without killer frosts are ideal for inciting anthocyanin.

Just as important as when you decide to go is when you decide to look. Those splendidly sunny autumn middays are for walking in the cathedrals of the woods as the sunlight turns the leaves to stained glass. For panoramas, however, slate skies make for better backgrounds, and not too many natural phenomena can match the light-and-shadow interplay on hillsides as rapidly moving clouds race across the sun. If it’s raining, my advice would be to stay inside with a beverage of choice. Wet leaves can be more dangerous than ice.

My favorite time is around sunset, when a hidden sun might slip beneath a cloud in just the right angle to electrify the leaves, barks and treetops. Stay around for twilight, when the subtlety of leaf color is exploited by the remnants of daylight. And if you’re fortunate to be somewhere on a clear night with a full moon, catch the silvery light on the colored leaves.