We Are Traveling

Sorry I haven't been able to get anything posted lately.  Warren and I are on a trip to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons, and internet access is limited.  I'll treat you to lots of entries as soon as I can!

Think PINK: Millions of Monkeyflowers!

Although there was lots of color yesterday, pink was the predominant color of the day.  Lynn, Mary, Gail and I, all headed over to the Two Medicine area of the Park and hiked up the Cobalt Lake trail.  It started out with sweet forest pink:

Pipsissiwa; Prince's Pine; Chimaphila umbellata

Pink Pyrola or Wintergreen

Mary and Lynn enjoying the waterfall on the way up.

After a steep, sweaty climb through a fairly humid forest (by Montana standards), we got up to a beautiful cascading creek coming from Cobalt Lake.  Lynn was taking us to her favorite Monkeyflower spot, and hoped to see them all along the creek.  They were there, but mostly still in bud.

We continued up along the creek and through meadows of paintbrush that were breath-taking.

Mount Rockwell at the head of this sub-alpine valley.

Then we came to the most amazing sight--a football field size meadow of solid pink Monkeyflower! I've never seen so many in one mass before.  It was like a river of Monkeyflower flowing down the meadow!

It is hard to capture the immense scope of what we saw, especially with the bright sun washing out the color a little bit.  It really was beyond breath-taking; stunning...magnificent...incredible...then it got better!

Further up the meadow (marshy and fed by a spring, not the creek) the flowers included lavender Alpine Willow-herb, yellow Arrow-leaf Groundsel, and Pink Spirea with the Monkeyflower.

It was an eye-popping day!  Here are a few more of my flower favorites:

Yellow Monkeyflower and Alpine Willowherb

Mossy rocks at the head of the seep and meadow.

Garden color: Monkeyflower, Valerian, Paintbrush, Arnica, Groundsel.

Mary and Gail enjoying the garden

Lynn is in flower-heaven!

Renegade Fleabane vying for attention amid all the other glories!

Gardens, Girlfriends and Goats!

Lynn's friend Mary is visiting from Seattle, and my friend from Cut Bank, Gail, is here as well.  The four of us met at Logan Pass yesterday morning to hike along the Highline Trail and enjoy the flowers. This part of the Park is also known as "the Garden Wall."  The trail traverses a steep slope from Logan Pass, north to Granite Park Chalet, just below a knife ridge of rock that separates the west side from the drainage to Many Glacier on the east.  The first part of the trail actually parallels the Going-To-The-Sun Highway below.

Beargrass and cliffs above the trail

Looking back at Logan Pass; Mt. Reynolds on the left, Clements on the right.

Not a great photo, but it shows the roadway going to Logan Pass; the trail is faintly above it.

The early morning shade gave us some beautiful lighting for our first flower shots:

Yellow Columbine and Rock Penstemon

Phacelia and Rock Penstemon

Lewis Monkeyflower

Twisted Stalk; the flowers will become dangling orange berries.

Explorer's Gentian

Yellow Columbine, Death Camas and Purple Chive

Golden Aster beginning to open

Cut-Leaf Anemones

Snowflake Mitrewort; Mitella trifida

Pink Spirea

Then the sun came over the east ridge and we had a full-sun kind of day!

Back-lit Beargrass stalks

Most of the Beargrass was about spent up here.

Lynn and Mary, "up a creek!"

Galardia

Tofieldia

Hiking buddies, Lynn and Gail

A variety of floral color covered the hillside;
 we are headed to the green saddle which is below Haystack Butte on the left.

Mature Beargrass with Haystack Butte.

Then we met the goats.  This one OWNED the trail!  He reluctantly stepped off so we could get by, but jumped right back up on the trail afterwards.  The goats' winter fleece is gradually coming off, so they looked rather haggard.

Then when we were taking a break above the trail on some rocks, here came a different Mama Goat...

 ...and then Baby Goat...

...and off down the trail they went!

We saw them again later, eating their lunch on the green hillside.

When we got up to the saddle below Haystack, we had lunch and found these beauties:

Alpine Speedwell

Rosy Paintbrush, with a peek of Heaven's Peak

I hope you can see all the variety of pink color in this rose-garden of Paintbrush!

Crazy sedge-grass

Another variety of Mitrewort; Mitella pentandra

Girlfriends on the trail:  Anna, Lynn and Gail

With our new friend Mary.

More gardens in the sunshine

Mt. Oberlin for a back-drop wasn't too bad.

As we were hiking back to Logan Pass, we found Mama and Baby resting in the shade.  

What a cute kid!

Mama staying protective as we passed by under them.

 Then we came around a cliffy corner and met the Logan Pass Welcoming Committee of One!

Where his horns should be look like old wounds,
so he must have lost a goat-fight somewhere along in his life.

 I zoomed in on this goat to take photos, but this is where he was in relation to the trail: