I just read the following from a photography blog that I enjoy reading:

Fall Color Report The Weekend of October 13-14 is your best bet for fall color in the Eastern Sierra. Most of the big trees are near peak color, but with the unusual weather patterns we’ve been having, it might not last long. Another storm could end it all, or two weeks of warm weather could make it last and last. It’s anyone’s guess. Last week’s storms burned out or blew off the leaves at higher elevations, and – Rich Seiling [West Coast Imaging blog]

(With tongue planted firmly in cheek…) I’ll agree that the “weekend of October 13-14 is your best bet for fall color in the Eastern Sierra”… of all of the weekends remaining this year.

But that doesn’t mean it will be good, especially if you are looking for aspens. I’ve hit many of the classic aspen spots during the past two weeks, and while I did find some good color this past weekend, and while there are certainly going to be a few OK spots left, the vast majority of the eastern Sierra aspen color is all gone. As of last weekend the trees up high were largely bare or, if they had any leaves they were brown or black. In the places where I did see good color last weekend, the groves were almost uniformly reaching the end of the show. And that was last weekend.

If you are going anyway… don’t bother going high. Check out lower canyons, especially a bit farther north along the range. Enjoy other types of all color if you can’t find aspens: golden grasses in meadows and pastures, non-aspen trees turning color in Owens Valley and similar areas, dogwoods in the western Sierra (along the highway 120 entrance to Yosemite, for example), western foothill color, and a dusting of autumn snow on the higher peaks.

October is my favorite time of year in the Sierra, and in a normal year there might still be quite a few aspens turning this weekend. But this isn’t a normal year, and I’m afraid that the aspen show is pretty much over.