8 Things That Close Early in Adirondack and Catskill Towns Before New York’s Fall Foliage Season
The last tube pushed off at Ausable Chasm on September 7, the Monday of Labor Day weekend.
Peak foliage in the Adirondacks doesn’t arrive until late September at the earliest, by the state tourism office’s count.
These are the things that close early in Adirondack and Catskill towns before New York’s fall foliage season.
1. Lake George Expedition Park
Lake George Expedition Park closes for the entire season right at Labor Day.
The Route 9 park’s 2026 hours page lists the season running Memorial Day through Labor Day, September 7 this year, with no fall reopening listed on the page.
The whole park goes dark.
New York’s official tourism site tracks fall color every year.
Its reports put the Adirondacks’ peak anywhere from late September into mid-October.
That leaves two to five weeks between the shutdown and the Adirondacks reaching their best color.
2. DEC Campgrounds
Campgrounds run by New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) across the Adirondacks and the Catskills start closing for the season right around Labor Day.
Golden Beach and Limekiln Lake, both up near Raquette Lake and Inlet, shut down on September 7 this year.
The Catskills lose campsites the same week, with Beaverkill, Kenneth L. Wilson, and Mongaup Pond all closing on that identical date.
Same date, different mountains.
More than twenty DEC sites across both parks follow that same September 7 cutoff, weeks before Columbus Day travelers usually show up looking for a site.
North-South Lake Breaks the Pattern
Not every DEC campground closes this early.
Golden Beach and Limekiln Lake close first, on September 7.
Rollins Pond and Saranac Lake Islands get an extra week and stay open until September 13.
North-South Lake Campground, a big drive-in site many Catskills leaf peepers already plan a trip around, stays open through October 25 instead.
That’s seven weeks after the smaller sites nearby go dark.
North-South Lake is the one DEC campground in either park a leaf peeper can count on.
3. Water Safari
Water Safari’s water rides shut down for the season within days of Labor Day.
The Old Forge park’s fall calendar brings the grounds back for only six Saturdays, from September 19 through October 24.
Every one of those Saturdays runs as a separate Halloween event.
The water slides stay shut off the whole time.
No water, no exceptions.
A family driving up during peak color in the second week of October expects a splash day to cap off a leaf-peeping weekend.
The water park side of the resort sits empty instead.
Only the amusement rides and the haunted train run that week.
4. Zoom Flume
Zoom Flume in East Durham wraps its 2026 season on September 7.
The Catskills water park’s hours page marks that Labor Day Monday as the last operating day before the gates shut for the winter.
Already dry for fall.
That’s five weeks before the Catskills usually hit peak color.
The gates don’t reopen until Zoom Flume’s next summer season, well past when Greene County’s maples finish turning.
Psst! How much do you know about the Adirondacks and the Catskills? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
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5. Belleayre Beach
Belleayre Beach at Pine Hill Lake closes for the season well before the Catskills' maples turn.
The state-run swimming spot's 2026 schedule ends on September 6, a Sunday, right before the Labor Day holiday.
Lifeguards go home the same week.
Locked for the season.
A hiker who spends an October afternoon on nearby Belleayre Mountain might expect to cool off in the lake afterward.
The gate stays locked and the beach sits empty instead, since swimming season ended a month earlier.
6. Hurricane Harbor
Hurricane Harbor, the water park at Great Escape in Queensbury on the southern edge of the Adirondack Park, only opens for the summer months.
The park's 2026 calendar lists the water park as open only on select days, Memorial Day through Labor Day, and not a single day after it.
Rides stick around a little longer.
No slides after Labor Day.
Great Escape's theme park side drops to weekend-only hours in mid-September.
Only the roller coasters and the weekend fall events carry Great Escape into October.
The water slides stay shut the entire time.
7. Gore Mountain's Skyride
Gore Mountain's scenic chairlift closes out its regular season early.
That Wednesday-through-Sunday schedule only lasts through September 6.
The North Creek resort's skyride schedule then cuts to Saturday and Sunday only, from September 12 through September 20.
No regular schedule left.
After September 20, only three pre-announced weekends remain: Leaf-peeping dates on September 26-27 and October 3-4, plus Harvest Fest on October 11-12.
That's six operating days scattered across the Adirondacks' entire peak color window.
8. Ausable Chasm's Tubing
Ausable Chasm's tubing season shuts down before many leaf peepers even load the car.
The Keeseville attraction runs its last tube float trip on September 7.
Tubing doesn't run again this year.
Rafting keeps going a little longer.
Tubes already put away.
Raft float tours stay on the same river through October 12.
Paddlers can still float the chasm at peak color even after the tubes are packed away for the season.
A rafting trip in early October means floating past maples already turning red along the gorge walls, something the September tubers never got to see.
The tubers who beat the Labor Day cutoff got warmer water and a faster current, but they traded away the season's best scenery to get it.
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