Via NPS.

Fall is here, as witnessed by the pumpkin beer articles and changing colors of the leaves.

While D.C. has a large tree canopy, with red maples, pin oaks and American elms changing color across the city, Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley offers truly picturesque views that are perfected in fall.

Unfortunately, not everyone will be able to travel Skyline Drive this season. Enter the National Park Service’s mountain view Web cam, which gives you part of the experience from your home.

NPS staff also provide weekly reports on the foliage in October, with this week’s warning that now is the time to visit. From the latest:

This all might sound a bit lofty, yes. But if you come to Shenandoah National Park anytime in the next week, you might be surprised by how the colors of fall in the Blue Ridge help bring a sense of accord – with nature, with the world, with yourself. Gazing out into hillsides coated in the splendid golds, oranges, and scarlets of autumn is good for the blood pressure, a great stress reliever, a bringer of peace of mind.
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If there is one week to come to Shenandoah to absorb the de-stressing benefits of fall, it is this week. You’re likely to see the widest range of color in these mountains between Front Royal and Waynesboro if you plan to arrive in the park sometime between now and next weekend. While there’s still a surfeit of green in the leaves in the lower elevations, in many parts of Shenandoah green is just a backdrop for the speckles of pumpkin oranges, carnelians, wines, and almost metallic golds and bronzes of maples, Virginia creeper, hickories, and ashes. Sumacs are still surprising with their chameleon Day-Glo tones of shocking orange, chartreuse, and pomegranate red. Sassafras’ mitten-shaped leaves seem to wave at you, in candy store shades – butterscotch, Fireball, lime, and tangerine. In places where the leaves have already started to waft ground-ward, a lone maple the color of a Tahiti sunset startles you awake. The views from Skyline Drive’s overlooks are heart-stopping magnificent. Prepare to be surprised!