This month started out unseasonably hot and we worried that the green hills would soon be brown. The weather gods have taken care of that worry. There has been rain most everyday for the last couple of weeks, it seems. Maybe I only remember the wet days and have forgotten that some were sunny? I have gotten used to wearing my rain gear. Yesterday by the time we returned to the car, my shoes sloshed. But still, it was gorgeous – green lush grasses and lots of wildflowers still in bloom. Our dogs enjoyed the temperature and ran and ran and ran.
Mary Ann has told me about these delicate flowers that are found along the lower part of the trail
Geum triflorum also known as prairie smoke or old man’s whiskers
A large patch of balsamroot
Old aspen trees
Frida
This majestic pine tree is slowly dying
Aphids on a Lomatium seed head
Another seed head without aphids on the same plant
Looking back, to the south. You can see tiny Deadhorse Lake in the distance
Tiny yellow composites with bitterroot buds surrounding
Blue penstemon and the yellow composite
And with a buckwheat
Same type of buckwheat with tightly closed buds
Blue gray sky. Green hills. In the foreground, the pale pink spots are all bitterroot about to bloom.
Frost Lake, known by other names is just one of several lakes that dot these hills
Grouse droppings
Thompson’s paintbrush
