Fall foliage

Fall foliage in Montana

Fall 2026 · updated daily

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Montana’s fall is short and most of the state changes within about two weeks.

Orange western larch among dark evergreens on a hillside above a river bend under gray clouds.
Western larch above the Middle Fork of the Flathead River, in Glacier National ParkPhoto: David Restivo, National Park Service (Glacier National Park) · Public domain · source
Yellow cottonwood leaves on a gravel shore and in clear water, with yellow trees along the lake and storm clouds over the far end.
Lake McDonald, in Glacier National ParkPhoto: Ryan Hagerty, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service · Public domain · source
Yellow and green cottonwoods along a gravel lakeshore, with calm water reflecting the trees under a cloudy sky.
The shore of Swan Lake, in the Flathead National ForestPhoto: USDA Forest Service, Northern Region · CC BY 2.0 · source
A hillside of western larch in gold and orange needles under a dark sky, with distant ridges beyond.
Western larch in the Ashley-Herrig area, in the Flathead National ForestPhoto: Geneva Thompson, USDA Forest Service · Public domain · source

Aspen and cottonwood in Glacier National Park, along Going-to-the-Sun Road and around Swiftcurrent and Avalanche lakes turn in the first ten days of October, and western larch on the slopes above Whitefish, Swan Lake and the Flathead goes gold over the same period.

The valleys follow within days.

Larch is a deciduous conifer, and its yellow on otherwise evergreen mountainsides is what distinguishes Montana’s autumn.

In a typical year

Bordering states

Color: Fallcast, the same map as the app. Basemap © OpenStreetMap contributors, Protomaps. Place outlines: U.S. Census Bureau.