We visited Catoctin Mountain Park this morning to see the fall foliage. Catoctin is where Camp David is located, though of course we can’t go there! Overall, the colors were pretty good though as usual the trees were in a variety of conditions from completely green to completely without leaves. Still, it can be summarized as at peak or beyond.
After parking, we immediately started hiking up to Thurmont Vista. This viewpoint looks over Thurmont, Maryland down below. As it was still early in the morning, the sun was shining brightly from this east facing spot.
A little easier to see after moving out of direct sunlight! There is definitely some nice color on the mountain!
The forest here is rather cluttered with a variety of trees, both alive and dead. Most trees had fall colors though many had already dropped their leaves. While the foliage was rather pretty when viewed in real life, it is much harder to depict through photography.
While we saw plenty of colors, yellow tends to dominate many areas of the forest like this one.
There were also many trees with orange leaves!
A beautiful yellow canopy above us! With some other colors higher up.
Dead trees, leafless trees, green trees, yellow trees, and a bit of red. A nice summary of what we saw today!
We soon reached our destination, Wolf Rock. This is a large boulder field with some deep crevasses in places to make things more interesting.
We walked around a bit, though we’ve never explored the entire boulder field as some parts are a bit sketchy to access.
After leaving Wolf Rock, we switched over to the telephoto lens to try and capture the beauty of the fall foliage that we saw. It is definitely easier with the significantly tighter framing of a long lens!
When we passed by Thurmont Vista again while hiking back out, the sun was no longer directly in front of us. It was a bit hazy as it always seems to be but the fall colors down below are visible!
Two final photos as we returned to our car and ended our morning at Catoctin!