Natural History Wanderings

The Rocky Mountain discussion forum at NaturePhotographers.Net has a discussion that includes the following wildflower reports from the front range and beyond:

• Whispering Pines Park near Franktown had plenty of paintbrush, hot rock penstemon, and evening primrose on Memorial Day. Castlewood Canyon had penstemon and larkspur.
• about 6500′ outside of Boulder has lots of phlox, bluebells, Mariposa lilies. Grizzly Creek outside of Glenwood had dodecatheons, spiderworts and I don’t remember what else, but was starting to look pretty good.
•  Parshall  Up Rd 21 around 8400 there are what I think were Mule ears going pretty good.
• Crested Butte over the weekend and things are a lot greener there this year than last year at this time, which seems promising for wildflowers later. We took a short hike on the Upper Loop trail and saw several early bloomers (short bluebells, phlox, etc.). Corn lillies are poking out. The ferns are also starting to come out up on Kebler.
• Not exactly the Front Range but when I drove from Belle Fourche, SD to Little Bighorn Battlefield, MT, Custer Nat’l Forest was blanketed with Lupine and Alpine Sunflowers

You can following the current discussion at: http://www.naturephotographers.net/imagecritique/bbs.cgi?a=vm&mr=74869&CGISESSID=00b22ae21061ca6ef5f36b79aaf4c17c&u=24293