Wildflower Wanderings: Just Another Day in Paradise

This is the 2nd installment of photos from our 2nd trip to Siyeh Pass; be sure to read the previous post to start at the beginning.

It was a beautiful sunny day with hardly a wisp of cloud--surprising, because of the storm the night before. The meadows in Preston Park hadn't changed much since the Friday before, but the paintbrush was a little further along.

the creek in Preston Park with Mount Siyeh behind

meadows full of Glacier Lilies with a little Western Pasqueflower thrown in.

We were anxious to head up to the alpine area and see what was growing up there. The past few days of sunshine had really made things pop up there.

Yellow Draba

Alpine Groundsel

Paintbrush; very short in the alpine environment, and hybridized a special color.

Mini-Alpine Garden: Alpine Bistort, Forget-Me Not, Buttercup, and Daisy Fleabane

Alpine Chickweed

Dwarf Hawksbeard

Wooly Daisy

different variety of Alpine Daisy; not wooly

a view of Mount Siyeh from Siyeh Pass; pronounced "sigh-ee"

the view the other direction to the east

From the same angle and zooming in to the rock, can you see our little seedhead friends?

And of course, you guessed it, more Jone's Columbine! Although we had expected to see as much or more than we saw 4 days ago, most of it had already gone to seed or looked storm-beaten--makes sense as the wind can really get crazy up on this high pass. But we did find this one beautiful clump to photograph.

Jone's Columbine seedheads, the more common sighting this day.

We started hearing a far-away, sweet cooing call as we were heading down. We had heard another hiker say he had seen a Ptarmigan and her chick, so we were looking for any movement across the terrain--we were still above treeline. Lynn asked me about a plant at our feet, and there was Mama Ptarmigan! She was moving one short step at a time, as though, "if I move really slowly, they can't see me," and cooing softly to her chick.

Mama Ptarmigan

She wasn't aggressive in any way, but we didn't see her chick anywhere. Finally we found it on the other side of the trail, working its way over to mama.