While I'm not a bee or even a botanist, I do appreciate mountain wildflowers. Last winter's heavy snowfall and a cool spring seems to have compressed our local wildflower season into a brief, but spectacular show. A quick backpacking trip to Marmot Pass in the Olympic Mountains of Washington state (and a side trip to nearby Hurricane Ridge) revealed these beauties below. Hopefully, I've identified them all correctly.
Where and when do you go to get your fill of wildflowers?
Lupines
Columbine
Tiger lilies
Indian paintbrush
Bunchberry
Spreading phlox
Below: Lupines and Western bistort highlight a meadow at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park, Wash.
Ratings and Comments
I've gone to the Hurricane Ridge and Obstruction Point areas 4 times in the past 5 weeks and have never seen so many wildflowers in my LIFE! I just took an alpine ecology class so it definitely helped to have 14 of us looking. Some of my very favorites were: Pink Elephant's Head (Pedicularis groenlandica), Jeffrey's Shooting Star (Dodecatheon jeffreyi), Menzie's Larkspur (Delphinium menziesii), Mountain Wallflower (Erysimum arenicola), Spreading Stonecrop (Sedum divergens). I found 97 different plant species up there...and that was just along the trails!! Trails around Rainier have a lot as well, but not as many as the Olympics. It's been wonderful seeing everything blooming this year!
We really enjoyed the wildflowers in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana this summer. We were on a volunteer trip along the Black Bear Creek trail and there were a great variety of flowers in the alpine areas. You can see a few of the pictures here: http://servicedriven.org/2011/06/23/photo-review-bob-marshall-wilderness/
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