Lake Catherine Wildflowers

This year as I was trying to find a weekend to go hike and see the wildflowers, I saw that the calendar was filling up and there was only one free Saturday! And even that was not so VERY free, but free enough that we could slip away for a morning. Then when the day came, as we were driving up the canyon at 6 a.m., accompanied by many other cars, I realized that I always try to AVOID going on a Saturday! I don't know what I was thinking. Weekdays are much better! But, luckily, we went early enough in the morning that we found a parking spot at the trailhead, and the trail wasn't too crowded. Next year I'll plan better, though!

It's been just the girls and me on this hike for the last couple years, and we love that, but this time Abe wanted to come too, and we were happy to have him with us! He's great company, and a good driver, too. The road up the canyon was newly paved, so he had a great time driving around all those winding curves.

The sunrise was pretty!

It was good of Abe to come on this hike with us. He could have run the whole thing five times in the time it took us to do it once, but he stayed and talked with us most of the way up, and then ran down and waited for us a long time at the bottom! What a great guy. I like him.

I brought a different camera lens with me than I usually bring on this hike, just for variety's sake. I couldn't get the same sweeping vistas, but it was interesting trying to compose new pictures within the views I'm so used to seeing. Made me look at things a little differently.

And it was nice for close-up pictures of the wildflowers!

Lots of elephant-head this year!

It's Goldie the elephant-lover's favorite, of course.

Here is our traditional picture-taking rock.

And the lurking Abe in the background.

The Indian Paintbrush seems particularly beautiful up close. It is so feathery, and so vibrant!

And the color gradations, when it's grouped like this, are wonderful.

I also always like it when we find white paintbrush, too!

Some of the flower meadows just seem unreal. Like there can't POSSIBLY be so many flowers naturally occurring in one place!

I really liked this flower, new to me this year. The individual florets almost look like columbine! Could it be the terrifyingly-named Elegant Death Camas?

I think this is Mountain Blue Penstemmon

Blue Flax

We like to go up beyond the Lake Catherine overlook now. But we still stop and admire the view and eat our granola bars in this familiar spot.

Then up toward Sunset Peak where you can see even farther down, to Lake Martha. Or is it Lake Mary? I can never remember.

The girls are always hoping they'll find their "sitting log" from two years ago. They carried it right to this spot and sat on it. But now it's long gone.

I like this side of the ridge, though. The landscape is rockier and the flowers seem a little different. There are more pines and junipers. And it just feels like you could reach up and touch the sky!

Daisy was feeling sad and abandoned here because we left her behind on the trail when she stopped to rest for a moment. Poor little lamb!

I found another unfamiliar flower on these high slopes. It looks very much like the Sheathed False Deathcamas! But surely BOTH my new flowers this year can't be…deathcamii?

Some sections of the trail took us through lupine as high as our waists! So beautiful.

Those huge meadows with millions of lupine or golden aster are amazing, but my favorite places are always the spots where there's a whole rainbow of flower colors! I just love the yellows and pinks and purples all together.

One Daisy among the Paintbrush…

And…likewise. :)

I said I liked the rainbow-colored meadows best. But this all-yellow one almost makes me reconsider. These flowers look like golden aster…or perhaps Rockyscree false goldenaster. Why am I telling you the names of these? Well…I don't know exactly. I just like to know the names of flowers, for some reason. And if I write them or say them every time I see them, it helps me remember!

Richardson's geranium

Golden groundsel? And one sticky geranium.

Ahhh. It's like hiking in the Garden of Eden! At least…I imagine so. :)