Natural History Wanderings

Here are a number of recent wildflower reports from the Rocky Mountain Nature Photographer’s Forum

I went to gold king basin last night, it wasn’t carpeted with flowers but there were a lot of flowers with lots of variety and very healthy, I would recommend it! (7/11/12)

I’m in Crested Butte this week – a quick drive up Gothic Road on Monday evening showed very little happening. No lupine to be seen, some paintbrush starting to emerge, but overall very poor.
I hiked up to Oh-be-joyful pass yesterday from the trailhead by the Slate River – again, very little in terms of flowers. It got a little better up above 10,000 feet and into Democrat Basin, but the flowers were pretty sparse. There were a few stands of lupine (already past prime) just below the pass itself. The best stuff was right by the streams in the upper basin. (7/11/12)

Update from the San Juans; I went up to yankee boy yesterday evening and the display in not impressive at all, everything below 11.5 is gone for the most part, you can find some decent amounts around 12k ft, but they are a bit wilted. This morning I went to governor basin which is much better, nice healthy variety and quite a few columbines at higher elevations, I would go here and skip ybb. Today I went over Imogene pass, there are some very nice areas just before the pass on the ouray side, large variety. I am headed up to gold king basin for the night, will report back when I can. (7/10/12)

I took a quick drive over Shrine Pass on Sunday. Not exactly profusion but I did find quite a few small groups of Paintbrush and Elephant Heads. Mostly just a mile or two up the road from I-70. On the Redcliff side there wasn’t a hole lot. A few splashes of color near the creek. (7/9/12)

Read all of their reports at: Wildflower Reports 2012