Siyeh Pass; In Search of Jones' Columbine

In the past when Lynn and I have hiked up to Siyeh Pass to find this special Columbine, we have only found the foliage and seed-heads.  We knew we'd have to get up there sooner in the summer to catch this one.  So this had to be our first hike in the Park; usually we can't even get up there until mid-July for the un-melted snow.  Now, no fair scrolling down to see the flowers ahead of time--you need to go through my narrative!  So if you don't have time right now, just close out the computer and come back later! :-)

Our hike started out along Siyeh Creek, where we saw totally different plants than up in the alpine area.

Elephant-Head

Common Mitrewort; Mitella nuda, a tiny, delicate plant in the woods.

Snowflake Mitrewort, Mitella trifida; this one is still basicly in bud--see next .

Snowflake Mitrewort

Butterwort; until you look closely, this looks like a little violet,
but the leaves are "bug catchers," making this a "carnivorous" plant!

 We didn't take any more photos until we had climbed up to some higher meadows.  They were covered with lots of early bloom:  Western Pasqueflower, Glacier Lilies and Western Springbeauty.

Western Pasqueflower; Anemone Occidentalis

The Pasqueflower we see at Lubec, that are blue and lavender are also called Prairie Crocus, and their botanical name is Anemone Patens.

Piegan Mountain in back of a Glacier Lily

These early alpine flowers are all that have emerged so far in these high meadows, which can usually have lots of color.  When we've hiked here before we would typically find lots of big flowers like Paintbrush and Groundsel. That will come toward the end of July.  Meanwhile these are the plants that first follow the melting snow.

Flower-nerd in Preston Park 

A field of White Mountain Dryas:

We were encouraged to see early plants, because that meant we were early enough to have a chance at finding our Columbine.  In the meantime, we began to see other alpine flowers, just as lovely.

Arctic Willow

Phacelia; in the background is a small, icy lake below Siyeh Peak.

The same Phacelia along the trail, but looking the other direction; Mt. Reynolds in back.

Alpine Springbeauty, Claytonia megarhiza
I've learned that he more common variety of Springbeauty that has the pink stamens
 and pink striations in the petals, is Clatonia laceolata or Western Springbeauty.

Our view of the valley we've come up from; this area is known as Preston Park.

Alpine Sandwort

Mini-garden of Sandwort, Potentilla and Alpine Springbeauty

Alpine Daisy-Fleabane

Forget-Me-Nots, my favorite.

Moss Campion

My guess is a variety of Alpine Groundsel.

Alpine Smeloskia

Alpine Smeloskia

Northern Anemone

Sky-Pilot

The blues of the Sky-Pilot and Phacelia was just teasing us along.  When we FINALLY got high enough to find foliage of the Jones' Columbine, we found seedheads as well. Too late!  AAAAAHHHHH!!!

But wait, here's one:

Mini-garden: Jones' Columbine, Alpine Springbeauty, Smeloskia, King's Crown

And so, we began to see a few here and there, but not like we had expected.  The seedheads and spent flowers we saw out-numbered the lovely blooms we wanted to photograph.

Happy to finally find some Jones.

With a spectacular back-drop like this, how could you not make a pretty picture!

We had hiked up as far as we were going to, and sat down to rest a bit and have a snack before we headed back down.  As we wandered the area a little bit to find other alpine flowers, Lynn went down over the saddle toward the snowbank, and let out a little Whoop!  She found fresh ones!  Lots!

Buds!  Now that's fresh!

You can see how the foliage is very distinctive and different from other types of columbine.

I hope you can see all the little blue clumps scattered over the rocky scree.

The white in the background is a snowbank!

Well it is hard to believe we could easily have come a week or two earlier and found even more, but we would have had to tromp through that much more snow to get to them.  On the way back down, we found more alpine gardens to enjoy.

Northern Anemones

Cut-leaf Anemone.  Difference?  The leaves!

Preston Park

 We'll have to come back later this summer to show you all the other loveliness that is in this beautiful alpine bit of Heaven.  Down in the woods we saw this crazy mushroom.  There is a Glacier Lily leaf-shoot coming up through the base of it.  I think it looks like a fancy pedestal birdbath thing!