Not Experts but getting better

Sunday July 10, 2011
Cedar Breaks National Monument
Brian Head, Utah

Hope you aren’t sick of wildflowers by now.
It may be that you have to be here to love it.
I know reading about it just isn’t the same.
So I promise, only 6 different flowers this time.
And, because you are so patient and loyal
in spite of the excess wildflower blogs,
a SURPRISE.
:-)

Today we went on two more wildflower walks for a
total now of 5.
This time we went with Steve Dahl who,
sadly for them both. is no relation to Paul.
He was hands down the best of all the leaders we have
experienced.   He spent a lot of his
time in this position given that many/most
wildflowers up here are low to the ground.

 

I’ll show you just
a few new ones that he showed us
and  the surprise.
You can click on any of these to see them more clearly.

Blue Flax

False Solomon’s Seal
which for my friends in Virginia
will look different than what they
are used to.

 

Jacob’s Ladder
The leaves are the ladder

The silver lupine had just come into flower

the mountain Locoweed
which some folks swear I have eaten
but it’s not true.  I was born this way.
And besides, this plant is SO small
(those are mostly pebbles next to it)
that I can hardly see it.

and finally the Markagunt Penstamon

We really enjoyed the two hikes with Steve
and wish we were going to be here
next Saturday when he will be leading again
and things will have changed.
There will be different flowers in bloom.  
Don’t miss it if you are in the area.

He knew pretty much everything. We
learned a great deal and he confirmed
what we thought we had learned previously.

He also took the two of us to another spot after the
formal tour to look for Elephant Head which he
was surprised to find was not up yet.
Everyone has said that the flowers here are at least
2 weeks behind usual. 

Steve said he’d never come
to this spot and not found the Elephant Head.
Of course with a name like that,
I had to look it up
so if you come up to Cedar Breaks next year,
let me know and I’ll tell you where to look for them.
They are off the trail so it’s a “secret”.

Here’s how they grow.  Wet boggy places.

Here’s a stalk.
Can you see the PINK elephant head?

If not try this.  Amazing isn’t it?
That’s our Mother Nature’s imagination at work.

Pictures compliments of the internet of course.

We did walks with Steve at 11 and 1:00.
We were back at the rig by 4:00 and
it rained on and off for the rest of the day
so we skipped the other ranger talks
and just putzed around.
It has been somewhat amazing that only one
of the walks since we’ve been doing them
has been rained out but it has pretty
much rained every day.

We had dinner, worked on getting these pictures
off of the cameras and onto the computers.
Answered some emails,  read until dark
which when you are boon docking and
don’t turn the lights on, seems like the
time to go to sleep.

And so we did.  :-)