Leaves in Reston and Herndon should reach peak color around November 5 this year, according to the Explore Fall forecast for Reston posted on September 27. The same model puts peak color in Shenandoah National Park on October 18, eighteen days earlier.
For anyone who likes to drive out to the Blue Ridge and also walk the paths at home once the maples turn, that gap means two separate weekends on the calendar. The mountains go first. Reston and Herndon follow about two and a half weeks later.
Skyline Drive and Sky Meadows State Park in Fauquier County both sit within about two hours of Reston. Patch lists them first and third on its new list of 12 Virginia fall drives.
Reston’s leaves should peak between November 2 and November 8
Explore Fall gives Reston a peak window of November 2 through November 8, with November 5 as the single most likely day. The site rates that timing as near normal for Reston and rates the expected color quality as normal.
Explore Fall credits the late summer temperature pattern with pushing this year’s peak later. Other factors partially offset that push, which lands the date close to the local average.
Evan Fisher founded Explore Fall, and its model runs on gridded temperature, precipitation and daylight data. The forecast refreshes every night at midnight, and the site estimates it lands within three days of the actual peak 80 percent of the time. A forecast pulled today can differ from one pulled in mid-October, so check back before you plan around a specific Saturday.
Reston stays mostly green until the second week of October
Explore Fall’s chart splits Reston’s season into six stages:
- Little to no color: through about October 7
- Low color: about October 8 to October 18
- Moderate color: about October 19 to October 28
- High color: about October 29 into the first days of November
- Peak color: early November, centered on November 5
- Past peak: from about November 10 through the end of the chart on November 24
On the calendar, Halloween weekend (October 31 and November 1) lands in high color. The weekend of November 7 and 8 falls inside the peak window. Veterans Day on Wednesday, November 11, sits right at the turn into past peak, when leaves start to come down in quantity.
Most of the raking, blowing and bagging in Reston yards will fall in the second half of November this year.
Shenandoah National Park should peak around October 18
Explore Fall’s Shenandoah forecast, which the site calculates for a point near Big Meadows on Skyline Drive, puts mid-peak at October 18, 2026. As of September 27 the park sat at low color. The chart moves it into moderate color at the start of October, high color around October 11, and peak color from about October 17 to October 24. By Halloween the forecast has the park well past peak.
Elevation accounts for most of the difference. Big Meadows sits at 3,548 feet, at mile 51 of Skyline Drive, more than 3,000 feet above Reston. Virginia State Parks describes the pattern on its foliage report page: the season starts “earliest in the higher elevations and moving eastward.”
The National Park Service does not publish a peak date of its own. Its fall visitor page says “it’s impossible to predict a peak time for fall color,” because the park runs more than 100 miles along the ridge and spans a wide range of elevations. In practice, color along Skyline Drive arrives in patches, with the high points around Big Meadows turning ahead of the lower northern end near Front Royal. The park posts fall color reports through the season, and the first one for 2026 went up on September 23.
Shenandoah’s peak lands on the weekend of October 17 and 18
Both forecast peaks fall on or next to a weekend:
- Mountains: Saturday, October 17, and Sunday, October 18, line up with Shenandoah’s forecast peak. The following weekend, October 24 and 25, catches the tail end.
- Home: Saturday, November 7, and Sunday, November 8, sit inside Reston’s peak window. Halloween weekend gives high color a week earlier.
On the mountain weekend, Reston will still be in low color, with most trees green and a few early turners. The mid-October trip lets you see the ridges at their best without giving up anything here, since the trees along Reston’s paths will not peak for another two and a half weeks.
Skyline Drive from Reston: entrances, fees and fall crowds
Skyline Drive runs 105 miles along the crest of the Blue Ridge with a 35 mph speed limit, and the Park Service estimates about three hours to drive the full length on a clear day. From Reston, the two nearest entrances are:
- Front Royal, at mile 0, reached by I-66 west and Route 340
- Thornton Gap, at mile 31.5, reached by Route 211 near Luray
The Big Meadows area at mile 51 is about 20 miles south of Thornton Gap.
The entrance fee is $30 per private vehicle and covers seven days. An annual Shenandoah pass costs $55. The Park Service suggests buying passes ahead of time on Recreation.gov to skip the wait at the booth, and it is installing automated entry stations at all four entrances this fall, which will take credit and debit cards after hours.
The two northern entrances, Front Royal and Thornton Gap, carry the heaviest traffic on fall weekends, according to the Park Service. Its suggestions: go on a weekday if you can, or take Route 29 or Route 340 south and enter at Swift Run Gap on Route 33 or Rockfish Gap on I-64. From Reston, either southern entrance adds more than an hour to the drive. For hikers, the Park Service warns that parking at Old Rag is limited on October weekends, particularly Saturdays, and recommends carpooling.
Sky Meadows State Park puts a Blue Ridge overlook about an hour from Reston
Sky Meadows State Park sits in Delaplane, in Fauquier County, a couple of miles south of Paris off Route 50 and Route 17. Patch puts the drive from Reston at about an hour, which makes it a half-day trip.
The park covers 1,860 acres, with 22 miles of hiking trails and three miles of the Appalachian Trail. Parking costs $10, and the park is open from 8 a.m. to dusk. The Piedmont and George’s overlooks both face east, and George’s looks southeast over the farms of the Crooked Run Valley.
The park holds its annual Fall Farm Day on Saturday, October 3, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Its Fall Foliage Festival runs Saturday and Sunday, October 17 and 18, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., the same weekend Explore Fall picks for Shenandoah’s peak.
Shenandoah River State Park pairs well with a Skyline Drive trip
Shenandoah River State Park in Bentonville, Warren County, is eight miles south of Front Royal and 15 miles north of Luray, which puts it between the park’s two northern entrances. It covers 1,619 acres along 5.2 miles of shoreline on the South Fork of the Shenandoah River, with 25 miles of trails. Patch singles out Cullers Overlook, which looks out over the river valley. Hours run from 8 a.m. to dusk.
A loop through Front Royal, down Skyline Drive to Thornton Gap, and back north past the state park makes a full fall day from Reston.
Reston and Herndon trails, lakes and parks carry the November color
The early November peak at home needs no drive at all. Reston Association maintains 55 miles of paved pathways and more than 1,300 acres of open space, and much of that path network runs through wooded stream valleys. The lake loops around Lake Anne, Lake Audubon, Lake Thoreau and Lake Newport add water to the view. The 72-acre Walker Nature Center in South Reston has its own trails through the woods.
Lake Fairfax Park, run by the Fairfax County Park Authority, wraps its woods around Lake Fairfax, Reston’s fifth lake.
In Herndon, Runnymede Park at 195 Herndon Parkway covers 58 acres and is open dawn to dusk. It has a paved accessible trail and a native plant garden with more than 100 species.
The W&OD Trail connects the two towns, running through the north end of Reston and straight through downtown Herndon on its 45-mile route from Shirlington to Purcellville.
Two parks on the Potomac sit just east of Reston in Great Falls. Great Falls Park, run by the National Park Service, charges $20 per vehicle for seven days, takes cards only, and offers a $35 annual pass that also covers the C&O Canal. Riverbend Park, a Fairfax County park at 8700 Potomac Hills Street, sits upriver on a bend of the Potomac with hiking trails, a boat ramp and a nature center. Riverbend’s lot can reach capacity on busy days, so arrive early on a peak weekend.
Shorter days start the change, and sunny days with cool nights bring out the reds
The National Park Service’s explainer on the rise and fall of foliage names decreasing day length and dropping temperatures as the signals that tell trees to prepare for winter.
Once the trees stop making chlorophyll, the green pigment that powers photosynthesis, the yellows and oranges show through. Those come from carotenoids, pigments that sit in the leaf all summer under the green. Reds depend on anthocyanins, red and purple pigments the trees produce in the fall, and the Park Service says the brightest reds follow “warmish, sunny days” that maximize photosynthesis and cool nights that “minimize the use of accumulated sugars.”
Prolonged drought and extreme heat stress trees, the Park Service adds, and “their leaves can shrivel and turn brown before having a chance to produce a colorful display.”
AccuWeather expects duller color across Virginia after this summer’s drought
AccuWeather’s 2026 fall foliage forecast, published August 26, says drought “has taken a toll on trees across parts of the mid-Atlantic and Carolinas,” which increases “the risk of brittle leaves and duller colors.” The same article expects a “drastic” contrast between central and northern Pennsylvania and the stretch from southeast Pennsylvania through Maryland and Virginia.
Explore Fall’s Reston forecast, a month later, rates color quality as normal. AccuWeather allows that recent rainfall may provide some benefit, but trees that have already experienced significant stress are the ones at risk. If the drought wins out, expect a shorter, browner season than the Explore Fall chart shows.
Check the forecasts again in mid-October
Four sources update through the season:
- Explore Fall recalculates nightly for any U.S. location, including Reston, Herndon and points on Skyline Drive.
- Virginia State Parks’ foliage report posts park-by-park conditions by region, starting September 24.
- The Shenandoah National Park fall color reports describe conditions inside the park as the season moves.
- The Old Farmer’s Almanac fall foliage map gives a national view of peak timing.
For a longer list of drives, Patch’s 12 road trips to see peak fall foliage in Virginia covers stops from Winchester’s apple country to Grayson Highlands in the far southwest, with drive times for each.
Shenandoah should peak around October 18 and Reston and Herndon around November 5, so the weekends of October 17 and November 7 catch both. We will be out on the paths in early November, and we hope to see you there.
See something missing or wrong? Email us at [email protected] and we will check it and update the post.
