Viewfinders make fall foliage pop for the colorblind in Virginia

Like so many other leaf-peeping enthusiasts, Tim Yates ventured out to Virginia’s Smith Mountain Lake State Park late this summer to see the early whispers of the fall foliage, which would soon give way to bright bursts of orange and red.

But for Yates, it was a rare opportunity to see the leaves, whether they were just beginning to turn or in their full glory.

For his entire life, Yates, 56, has been red-green colorblind, meaning his eyes have trouble distinguishing between certain hues. For him, the leaf-peeping experience can be relatively muted.

“Clothes or flowers and a lot of different stuff, I just never really knew the color,” said Yates, a retired beverage salesman from Bedford County, Virginia. “In school, I always struggled with colors.”

But at Smith Mountain Lake, which is an hour outside Roanoke, Virginia, new specialized viewfinders allow Yates and others like him to appreciate the scarlets and golds on oak and maple trees from a distance. This year, the state park system was the first in the nation to install the red-green colorblind viewfinders at all of its locations, according to a statement from Virginia State Parks. Each one is equipped with lenses that expand the visible ranges of the fall displays.

“I could actually see the red and distinguish the colors,” Yates said.

The initiative was led by Chief Ranger Ethan Howes, who is himself red-green colorblind. He had read about the viewfinders being used in Tennessee and added a trial installation to Natural Tunnel State Park, in Duffield, Virginia, where he works. Howes resisted trying out the lenses until the first viewfinder was installed in a park.

“I was taken aback by the brightness of the colors around me,” he said in an email. “Reds popped out more to me. I could see the differences between several shades of blue and purple.”

The viewfinders were placed in the 43 State Park locations in high-traffic areas with expansive views and the opportunity to witness a variety of colors. Several participants, including Yates, were invited to test the viewfinders after they were installed. The response, Howes said, was overwhelming.

“One participant at the revealing said it was like a highlighter had been taken to the world,” he said. “Another had always thought grass was always a kind of brown color.”

Melissa Baker, director of Virginia State Parks, said the impact was felt at each site.

“I was at our event at Pocahontas State Park, and it was one of the most meaningful days of my job,” she said.

The lenses for so-called SeeCoast viewers are manufactured by EnChroma, and they filter wavelengths of light to increase contrasts and help viewers differentiate between colors. This year, after the success of the trial run at the park where Howes works, a viewer was installed at each remaining park.

Although there can be slight differences in how people’s eyes interpret color, about 13 million people in the United States are colorblind to some degree. About one in 12 men has a color vision deficiency, according to the National Eye Institute. Red-green color deficiencies are the most common, which is when people have trouble distinguishing between shades with the two colors in them.

“Your brain has a kind of palette in its head, without ever opening your eyes, of colors that you know it might encounter in the world,” said Bevil Conway, who runs a research lab at the National Eye Institute.

With people who have a red-green color deficiency, he said, “They’ve got all of the color ideas, it’s just the sense data that they get doesn’t map nice and cleanly.”

Park systems nationwide are beginning to adapt and become more inclusive. Similar viewfinders have been installed at several parks in Tennessee, as well as in sites in Florida, Georgia and Oregon. Virginia State Parks have also introduced other accessibility features so more people can enjoy the parks, including all-terrain wheelchairs for guests with disabilities and a system to make navigating trails easier for people with vision impairment.

The hope for those behind the program is that at Virginia parks, any visitor can experience the breadth of their surroundings.

“It is amazing to me,” Howes said, “the amount of hues and shades of colors in the world.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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