I've been envisioning this scene for 3 or 4 years but have never been able to pull it off - and the window of opportunity is pretty short. 3-4 years of missing the boat. Today it mostly came together. Interesting color combinations.
Part of the answer was the perfect conditions (the trees are actually past peak, but close enough). Another part was to get a little further away - this was one instance where the old adage of "move closer" didn't get me what I wanted and backing up from 40 feet to 80 feet did the trick.
Nothing special technique-wise except a circular polarizer to pop the clouds (and the tripod to aid in composing the scene). Ended up cropping just a hair from the top - too much non-contributing blue.