The north Cascades fall colors rival the Colorado Southwest. The yellow and red contrast is what stands out the best in my opinion. In Colorado it is the quaking aspens & cottonwoods contrasting with the Gambel oaks. In the north Cascades it is the larch (tamarack) contrasting against the red ground cover of the blueberry bushes. There is one major difference though. The Colorado fall colors are matte. The Cascade fall colors, especially the larch are glossy. The larch positively glows especially with back light from the sun! These are photographs I made from the Blue Lake and Heather-Maple Pass hikes. Further west there was a fire, so the smoke in the air made for some ethereal pictures and also made the morning alpenglow last a lot longer than we are used to.
