Stony Pass

The events described herein took place on July 18th.

On the advice of John and Grayle Blecker, we traveled up Stony Pass today. They'd told us that this was where they'd seen the most flowers in previous years. We were not disappointed — the upper reaches of Stony Pass were absolutely blanketed with wildflowers. Painted hillsides, colored stream banks, riotus marshes were all the norm. At right you can see my dad walking through just one of the many meadows we stopped to see close up. The many different environments created by altitude, exposure, slope, drainage, and water produced a great variation in the wildflowers we saw. The most numerous were several varieties of Indian Paintbrush, several daisies and asters, larkspur, columbine, cowslip, Parry's Primrose, and a fragrant white flower that we've not identified. Stony Gulch provided the best flowers we've seen on this trip, by a good margin.

At far right you can see the badly misnamed "violet". These typically grow in partial shade near running water; this particular blossom was right near the waterfall pictured below. Usually these are fairly isolated blossoms, but in this case there was a mass of violet blossoms in a small area, with densities reaching 40 or so per square foot. Beautiful! Immediately to right is a larkspur blossom with a bumblebee exploring it, looking for nectar and pollen. These larkspur are very common here, usually found on sunny hillsides above timberline, but occasionally almost anywhere else. Their color varies from intense blues (as in the photo) to bright purple. The bumblebee (which is about half the size of the ones we're used to) is also very common. In addition to the yellow band we've seen on many other bumblebees, this one also has a golden-orange band aft of the yellow one. It's actually quite pretty. I followed this one around trying to get a picture of it (many failed ones were deleted tonight), and eventually I saw it enter a small hole in the earth.

I love time-exposures of falls, softening the water's action and giving the impression of motion. And a little romance, too, I think. This was a 0.5 second time exposure, in broad daylight but in deep shadow and with a polarizing filter to reduce the sheen on the rocks. This falls is about halfway up the Stony Pass road, and it was home to a number of delightful wildflowers, including the violets mentioned above.

As usual, click on any photo for a larger view.