Good luck, I hope you see some great color CCDM_9. Sadly, because it's been so dry, many of the waterfalls are close to if not dried up. The normally covered gorges at Temperance were widely exposed, which I thought was pretty cool to look at. I heard Cascade was dry, but can't confirm that.

On a video from the International Wolf Center in Ely posted Friday, there was mention that there isn't much color in Ely. Due to the past dry year most of the leaves are simply drying up and falling. Oh well, I'm glad we had good fall foliage the last two years.

Just returned today. Not great color, but better than expected. The areas of maple along the Caribou Trail, Sawbill Trail and Highways 3, 4, & 5 between Beaver Bay and Finland were very close to peak. We did our yearly Mt. Oberg hike and the vistas on the north side were very nice--also very close to peak. Lower on Oberg the maples and some of the smaller maples on top hadn't really turned yet. Poplar and birch were a dull yellow or else still green.

Highway 61 is being repaved between the two tunnels. We lucked out but it looked like it could be a 10 to 15 minute delay.

Thanks for the report CCDM_9...

I'd forgot to mention that if you head up on a Thursday, the construction will affect your trip. Some of our friends actually couldn't sleep because their campsite was close enough to the highway that it kept them up all night. Yep, they're working evenings during the week, possibly because they stop on Fridays for the weekend tourists? I'm not sure when you went up, but we arrived at Tettegouche around 1:30 and saw no construction crews.

I'm actually surprised at how much cities color I saw this weekend after the cold evenings last week.