Wildflower Reports 2012

It's that time of year again. With the mild winter, many people are seeing early wildflowers and, as in years past, this is a great place to get info on the "hot spots." Feel free to post current wildflower images, locations and conditions as you travel. Thanks!!

I was in Crested Butte over the weekend and drove a few miles up the Kebler Pass Rd. Saw a few lupines blooming already close to town. I also saw a few larkspur on one hillside on Washington Gulch Rd. a couple miles outside town. Up on Gothic Rd., it looks to be a stellar year for corn lillies but perhaps they are always thick in that area. Dandelions seem to be doing well everywhere

Some stuff starting to show up around Colorado Springs. I've seen some prickly pear blossoms, wild roses, blue bells in and around North Cheyenne Canon Park and on Mt Herman.

I was up on Centennial Cone in Jefferson County on Saturday June 2 and it seems everything that will bloom in that climate is blooming right now. Penstemon, various cactus, arnica, red indian paintbrush and a number of other plants were blooming in various areas. Didn't see any dense areas in bloom, but at the 7500-8200 ft range the bloom is on now. Seems a little early to me for penstemon, but the spring was exceptionally warm this year.

There are already plenty of alpine tundra flowers, forget-me-nots, phlox, that kind of stuff, above treeline in the Pecos Wilderness in New Mexico. And there are some columbines and wild irises and stuff getting going in the lower valleys. I'm looking at an iris-huting expedition this coming weekend.

Buffalo Creek area near Bailey, CO has some small blooms, lupines and paintbrush.

The cactus in Pawnee are going crazy, lots of variety in color

It's far from solid carpets, but there are definitely some nice patches to be found in the meadows from 8-10k feet or so in alpine New Mexico.

Nice shot of the wife and baby Frishman, Jackson! Also, a beautiful variety of colors of flowers.

From a few images seen, it appears the yellow columbine along West Fork and Oak Creek above Sedona are blooming.

Update:6-16-2012 Took a hike today to the subway section. The red monkey flowers are gone. There are some yellow columbine along the creek, but some blooms are starting to wither. The wet seeping wall at the mouth of the canyon has good columbines. Smaller yellow flowers on the creek floor are past peak.

Avalanche lilies all over the place in the Snowies, probably peak in a week or so. Tons of marsh marigolds. Moderate amounts of other wildflowers. Roads off of 130 not open yet, so you have to walk more, but easy to dispersed camp & not many people.

Has anyone been over Shrine Pass lately? Thinking about a trip there in the next week or so.

Shrine pass is usually 4th week in July or 1st week of August...but might be early this year because of all the heat.

I shot this last year on August 2: http://www.naturephotographers.net/imagecritique/bbs.cgi?a=vm&mr=65891&CGISESSID=f9f18220bcb64b0600b61147dd2c5241&u=19634

Hey, Jack...
I was up there during the last week in in July last year and it was pretty nice (I didn't get anything as nice as your shot, however!). The heat this summer and the unusual winter have me wondering about the timing this year. I almost missed a regular patch of Columbines down here because the timing has been little off...

Yeah Bob, I'm getting a little nervous..things are either gonna be early or as in one case a person reported everything was already scorched somewhere near Steamboat Springs.

Hiked up to the top of Cheyenne Mountain yesterday (a story for another day), and ran across small patches of Columbine,etc. Most were just past prime, especially at the top (around 9,000ft). That seems to be a bit early for me, but not sure if it's because of the heat, the lack of snow in this area over the winter or something else. I'm not sure how it relates to similar elevations in other areas, but I just wanted to throw it out there and see what others have found.

Kebler Pass-dried up from the west entrance to about Lost Lake Slough Campground. The aspen forests between the campground and Horse Park Ranch currently have amazing fern growth, with enough Lupines and other colorful flowers to compose beautiful aspen forest scenes.

Trail Rider Pass/Snowmass Lake-its very dry in the White River National Forest. It's too early to get excited about wildflowers above 11,000-ft. They're on their way but just need about two weeks.

I agree with Kane's assessment of Kebler Pass. We were in the Crested Butte area this weekend and saw very few wildflowers anywhere. My husband did a 40 mi. mountain bike race and he did say up higher there were nice patches here and there, but everything is VERY dry around that area. We hiked a couple miles up the Dark Canyon Trail today and the corn lillies were literally scorched from the heat/dry. The ferns were very nice though! I spent an hour yesterday shooting in a patch just past the trailhead.

I hiked up to South Gap Lake in the Snowy Range, Wyoming on Sunday. Last year the road to Sugarloaf Recreation Area, the trailhead to South Gap Lake, had a 10 foot high snow drift blocking the entrance. This year almost all of the snow has already melted. I saw alot of alpine lilys and assorted other flowers along the trail. Some of the alpine lilys have burned up. There were a few columbine with more on the way.

I was in Snowy Range and Indian Peaks Wilderness over the past week. Snowy range has some color but still a few weeks away. Indian peaks has some nice carpets of flowers around 10,500ft.

Mitchell Lake -- go now. Great at the inlet & several other patches on the trail. Blue Lake is still weeks away. This picture was taken at midday today with a P&S.

I went up West Chicago Creek in the Mt. Evans Wilderness a couple of days ago. In the past there have been a couple of nice flower patches a half mile to a mile up the trail. This year it looks like the bloom was a week or two early and what few flower bloomed were quickly drying up. I went all the way up to timber line and did not see anything that looked promising.

I called a couple of the jeep tour places in Ouray today to inquire about Yankee Boy Basin. One said the flowers were in full bloom and the other said at peak. fwiw.

Dang...I won't be there till a week from saturday.

wait, what?! It makes me wonder what shrine ridge is like right now?

I drove up to Goose Creek in the Hayman today. The extreme heat and drought has decimated the wildflowers in E CO this year;
ordinarily Hayman is covered in blooms last couple weeks of June into early July--nothing this year.

I'm hearing that Crested Butte doesn't look so good. Can anyone confirm that? (Or better yet, refute it?)

I'm going to check out the Porphyry Basin/Yankee Boy Basin areas tomorrow and Thursday and will post a report ASAP.

John, Let me know if you think these areas will hold on another week or so..I plan to be at YBB on the 14th.

I'll do that, Jack. I may just file a report from Ouray. I really appreciate Doug's report and it's why I'm headed up that way, but part of me is pretty skeptical about peak blooms so early.

Just got off the phone with Jason Hatfield. He says the lower portion of Shrine Ridge is full of flowers right now. He hasn't been all the way up to the ridge so I can't report on that...hmmm I may have to drive up there tomorrow!

I went up to Long Lake yesterday and I would say it's peaking right now. Not a bad spot for only 1 1/2 hours away from Denver. Too many kinds of flowers to name that are blooming. They are only on the south side of the lake, as usual. It's probably an average year for the lake, but that is better than anything else for most places on the front range.

I can also confirm what Roger said about Chicago Creek up Hell's Hole trail. Usually great flowers about 1/2 mile up, but this year there are few and what are blooming look like miniatures. Plus, they are past peak. Very sad!

Sounds like a Saturday morning trip to Shrine is in order.
Morris, there are about 12 different Long Lakes in CO. Which one did you visit?

Crater Lake in the Indian Peaks has some nice blooms around the lake, not a huge amount but enough to make good compositions. Mirror Lake has a small amount, but I think that's normal. I'm very curious to hear about Crested Butte as I was planning on heading down there next week

I updated my blog with a report on the San Juans. The Ouray Library is about to close so I'll include a link. The basic gist, get down here now, high elevations are near/at Peak.

Report

Jason's Report
Thanks for the update Jason.

Spent last night at Porphyry Basin and the wildflowers look terrific there! As good as I've ever seen them, and the recent (and current) rains can only help. I'm writing this in Silverton now and am considering venturing up to American Basin after breakfast.

You may not be able to make it John, just came across this information:

The Alpine Loop on the Cinnamon Pass side at Sherman/Shelf Road will be closed for at least two days due to a large rock slide. We will post when the road opens back up.

Please do not try to access American Basin from Engineers Pass today. There is apparently damage on Cinnamon Pass near there and we need to get confirmation from San Juan County on the actual condition later today.

From Lake City's Facebook https://www.facebook.com/LakeCityCO

Thank you very kindly, David! I caught this just as I was going up that way. I saw their most recent update, but still didn't feel like negotiating boulders in the rain.

Cinnamon pass is fine but closed due to the road to Lake City being
washed out. I came out over the pass from American Basin around noon. Wildflowers are definitely peak in the Basin.

Thanks for the info. I'd thought about heading up from Lake City. Guess I'll stay on 50.

Sorry, Bill! The one that's at Brainard Lake Rec area near Indian Peaks. Just above Ward, Co.

Part Two of my wildflower report. American Basin is Peak right now, Grizzly gulch is good, Porphyry Basin is scary at 3am in a 4runner with thin tread.

I took a quick drive over Shrine Pass on Sunday. Not exactly profusion but I did find quite a few small groups of Paintbrush and Elephant Heads. Mostly just a mile or two up the road from I-70. On the Redcliff side there wasn't a hole lot. A few splashes of color near the creek.

Here's another from the west side about 3 miles upstream from Redcliff

@Bill Did you walk the Shrine Ridge trail? That's were I found the carpets of wildflowers last week, I didn't see much from the road though.

@Jason...No, I had to be back in town early afternoon so I didn't spend a lot of time hiking. I'm probably going to head back up this weekend and will take the hike since my presence is not required in town.

Update from the San Juans; I went up to yankee boy yesterday evening and the display in not impressive at all, everything below 11.5 is gone for the most part, you can find some decent amounts around 12k ft, but they are a bit wilted. This morning I went to governor basin which is much better, nice healthy variety and quite a few columbines at higher elevations, I would go here and skip ybb. Today I went over Imogene pass, there are some very nice areas just before the pass on the ouray side, large variety. I am headed up to gold king basin for the night, will report back when I can.

Thanks for the Shrine Pass/Trail update Bill and Jason. I plan on going up there Thursday and spending the day. I'll update what I see when I get back.

@David Wow, Yankee Boy went fast!

I'm in Crested Butte this week - a quick drive up Gothic Road on Monday evening showed very little happening. No lupine to be seen, some paintbrush starting to emerge, but overall very poor.

I hiked up to Oh-be-joyful pass yesterday from the trailhead by the Slate River - again, very little in terms of flowers. It got a little better up above 10,000 feet and into Democrat Basin, but the flowers were pretty sparse. There were a few stands of lupine (already past prime) just below the pass itself. The best stuff was right by the streams in the upper basin.

Oh well...

I went to gold king basin last night, it wasn't carpeted with flowers but there were a lot of flowers with lots of variety and very healthy, I would recommend it!

I shot Shrine Ridge this morn, had the trail all to myself, it was nice! You definitely have to get up on the ridge for the flowers, there are very few down low. Wont attain the glory that it did last year, but worth the trip! Will post pics in a day or so. Also drove over Boreas Pass, there were some clumps up there too.

Got a late start last Saturday so I decided to stay a little closer to home vice head to the San Juans as originally planned. Went over Tin Cup Pass from St Elmo into Taylor Park. Nothing of note on that route. Some small pockets of columbine in the rock fall next to Mirror Lake. Decided to spend the night on Hagerman Pass and check out the area that was nice last year for me. This year it the columbine in the Skree fields were much less and the wind was blowing by the time I got to them. The fields on the west side of the pass were non-existent, with the exception of some nice patches of blue bells. Looked like maybe there had been blooms that were gone.
I hadn't been over the Thomasville-Eagle road past Sylvan Lake State Park, so I headed down Hagerman Pass road into the Fryinpan River valley. There was a little color here and there but no broad fields. Nothing worth stopping for. The drive into Eagle was nice with some great weather and wonderful views, but very little flower activity.

So it was a nice overnighter and drive through some of the central ranges, but not much happening for flowers. Hope I can get out again!

Went to Porphyry basin last night, flowers around the waterfall look great, columbines are starting to wilt though. At the top of the trail there are fields of paintbrush that are quite impressive, the roads in good shape as they just ran a dozer up the hill yesterday, it was a little sketchy coming down after a bit of rain overnight but I managed to keep my drawers clean

American Basin is still in good shape, especially around the 2nd waterfall and the one on your way up to the lake. The columbines on the hillside are very sparse. I blew out a shock on my way up there today so I'm dead in the water unless I can get it fixed tomorrow

Spent all day Thursday on Shrine Pass....would've spent the night there, but had an appointment for first thing Friday morning. I highly recommend going up there this weekend! I went up Lime Creek Road and back and didn't go further west on Shrine Pass Road. I later hiked to the top of Shrine Ridge. There are lots of lupine, paintbrush, asters, black-eye Susan and lilies along the roads and the hiking trail. In some areas the paintbrush had a deep, almost purple color! I didn't see any Columbine, but last year there were plenty at the end of July. They may still bloom, or this crazy weather may have caused them to bloom and go away already. I any case, definitely worth a trip soon.

I was able to get my shocks replaced this morning and went up to mineral basin this afternoon, the flowers around the waterfall are exceptional, I think I took one of the best shots of the trip so far today

@David I wish the road had been bulldozed before I went up

I just returned from a week in the San Juans. I spent the first two mornings, 7/9&10, at Clear Lake. Compared to two years ago when I was there, the flowers were about the same in number. The Columbine blooms were in decline with half already to seed. The stinky pink primrose flowers along the waters edge were about 3/4 shiveled1/4 left in bloom. The bluebells and white flowers along the northwest shore were good condition.

Went to American Basin for the following two mornings. The field on the right before the trailhead/road end was very poor. Just south of the parking lot, the bluebells and larkspur were at peak, but the numbers were less than 2 years ago. Columbines were fewer, especially on the eastern hillside. The yellow flowers to the southwest across the creek seemed better.

Spent last night at Porphyry. The improved road was fine for my full sized, 4wd pickup. The flowers seemed best here of all the spots I visited. Along the creek and fields above the falls to the roads end were very good in condition and abundance to my eyes. Primrose and paintbrush in the basin above Bullion King Lake were in good shape and a few good patches.

Went to Stony Pass last night. At the 4.8 - 5.0 mile mark on the left was very good...about what I saw 2 years ago. Very few columbine but loads of paintbrush and some lupine and others that I don't know names of.

Just got down from blue lakes and wow were we gifted with amazing conditions, best time of my life. There are no flowers along the ridges that are typically photographed above the first lake, looks just like YBB as you would expect, there are some flowers around the second lake to work into a comp, there are very nice fields of paintbrush mixed with many other flowers above the third lake at the bottom of the switchbacks

Thanks for the updates everyone. I just moved to Eagle 6 weeks ago, so I appreciate the reports!

I was in the Steamboat Springs area late last week and wildflowers were pretty sparse. Not many of them blooming around the normal hotspots around Dumont Lake and Rabbit Ears Pass, the few examples of paintbrush and penstemon that were there were drying up pretty fast. Dumont Lake also has hardly any water in it. Conditions for flowers weren't much better on the other side of town under Sleeping Giant and along Elk River, though there are plenty of opportunities for other landscapes with rolling hills and cool old barns out there. There were some flowers in the shaded areas north of town, just don't expect to find the sweeping views of hillsides full of flowers that have been available in the past. Maybe next year!

Crested Butte: The flowers are there, just not in any of the usual lower elevation spots. Hike up from Schofield Park to West Maroon Pass, the best display is under the pass near the trail junction from Frigid Air Pass. There are a few patches around emerald lake as well. I found absolutely nothing at lower elevations around Crested Butte. Flowers are basically above tree-line. Fravert Basin has a nice display and the ridge above Snowmass Lake as well.

Almost forgot, went up to Shrine Ridge this morning. No fields on top like last year but found some nice patches near a group of trees and the red conglomerate rocks. I can't tell if the top is never going to bloom or is still waiting to happen as there have been nice blooms below the ridge for 2+ weeks now.

Lower Ice Lakes basin is fried, almost nothing to be found, I heard from someone else up there that there are nice patches of columbines around the waterfall though. The upper basin is quite nice, fields of paintbrush around the blue lake, same around island lake. The tarn where the most common picture is taken didn't have many flowers but there were some to work with. That's all for my updates this year, my 2 weeks in the San Juans is over and I'm finally back home

Just got back from the San Juans last night. As of Sunday morning, the flowers at Clear Lake were quite good, definitely worth the trip. Porphyry had some fairly nice spots, too. Everything else is farked.

Just got back from the Grand Canyon North Rim...the wildflowers are plentiful and gorgeous. Asters, lupine, paintbrush etc all over the roads to Pt Imperial and Cape Royal. The Tall Evening Primrose is plentiful and as pretty as they get. It's outta the way, but if you're passing through soon, definitely worth the side trip.

Any updates on wildflower reports in Durango/Telluride/Silverton/Ouray area?

Any updates on wildflower reports in Durango/Telluride/Silverton/Ouray area?

Pete,

check out the reports at the San Juan National Forest Website at: http://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/sanjuan/home/?cid=stelprdb5389668&width=full

This is from the latest report on 9/28/12:
Estimated Percentage of Current Fall Foliage:

Durango – 15% (90% oakbrush)
Purgatory - 85%
Molas - aspens - past peak
Silverton – aspens - past peak

Red Mountain Pass - 90%
Dallas Divide / Telluride - 50%

Pagosa / Wolf Creek Pass – 70% East Fork

Rico - 90%
Dolores – 15% (80% oakbrush)
Mancos – 15% (80% oakbrush)

Areas with Greatest Amount of Color / Recommended Viewing Areas:
Purgatory should be peaking saturday or sunday.
Rico to Dolores is good this weekend.
East Fork of the San Juan North of Pagosa Springs.
A little lower to see color this week, and it is changing fast. Middle Mountain and Missionary Ridge aspens and oak going fast.
The passes are good early in the week (Lizard Head, Red Mountain Molas, Wolf Creek). Then downhill as the week moves on.