A sun and flower loving group of 11 Mountaineers hiked up 5 Mile Road and 4+ miles south on Tronsen Ridge to the high point (caltopo route is attached). A hiker informed us that all of the blowdowns were cleared at the southern end of the trail! We encountered no blowdowns. The trees and shrubs that were scratching up vehicles on 5 Mile Road have been cut back leaving a wide berth. We saw about 12 motorcycles, all of the riders were very courteous.
If you want to see Tweedy's lewisia (photo 1) you need to get out here pretty soon, I'm guessing about 80% of it has passed. There are only a few bitterroots left, but lots of Columbian lewisia (photo 2). The flower season on the ridge is about 3 weeks ahead of average I would guess. These are the flowers that are out in large numbers or that have thick, showy patches: roses, lupine (photo 3), mountain arnica, prairie smoke, sitka and Wenatchee (!) valerian (photo 4, butterflies love valerian), multiple wild buckwheats, (beautiful, multi-colored) Chelan penstemon (some shrubby and yellow penstemon too), larkspur (photo 3), and Lyall's mariposa lilies. There was a flower every step of the way on the trail and I would guess 70 or 80-some species in bloom.
It's great that my timing of hikes out here has been "off" and I've hiked many trails later in the flower progression than I normally have. I've seen many new flowers and many thick displays that I haven't seen before. And it's not just the blooming flowers, fading and wasted balsamroot can be very pretty, the pods of Washington twinpod and the milk vetch look like robin eggs and jelly bellies, multi-colored fading lupines are striking, and so many more visual delights!
Comments
Mary&Mollie on Tronsen Ridge
Thanks for the update on the car scratching road growth! Not a bad walk up the road. Also nice to be able to drive it.
Posted by:
Mary&Mollie on Jun 18, 2023 04:47 PM