Natural History Wanderings

Where to photograph in California – Yahoo Groups has a wildflower report from Charlie Russell of  Wildflower Hikes

I hiked the lower portion of the Lyons Creek trail in El Dorado National Forest (off of hwy 50) on Monday, and the flowers are fantastic. I only went up about 2.5 miles due to time limits (didn’t make it up to Sylvia Lake, unfortunately). I almost didn’t get out of the parking lot, actually, because there were so many flowers right there. The trail (for this portion) is relatively flat and easy, progressing through a series of small meadows. I found at least 49 different species of flowers.

My first cut of pictures are at Flickr: Lyons Creek – I haven’t identified everything yet (not enough time) so feel free to leave comments to help with identification (and please correct any mistakes I made).

Go early in the day, because it can get pretty hot there this time of year (it was in the upper 80’s, and that was before the heatwave hit this area), and because the flies were more annoying in the late afternoon. No mosquitoes unless you get up to the lake (which is about 5 miles in).