No, this isn’t from some mountain meadow… it’s from my front yard. I love having the heather bloom all winter — giving what few bees are around some flowers to visit. The boulder was likely a glacial erratic that was on the property, but that was before my time here.
These are just some various shots I took on my last Yellowstone trip. The Grizzly was a long ways away from the road where I was … just a long telephoto lens and some cropping. The moose photo (below) isn’t the best … a little blurry. But it decided that it didn’t like the photo op and hurried off before I could get another shot off.
There are other views to be had besides the ones in my last few posts that focused on hot springs and buffalo.
I’m not completely sure that these are Yellow Fawn Lilies … but they look just like what in Washington would be that lily. An advantage to going to Yellowstone early is the spring wildflower show. Very nice.
If you have a little extra time, one of the day trips worth taking from Yellowstone is getting outside the park and down to Jackson Hole, where you can get an excellent view of the Tetons.
Some spots in the high country are easier to get to than others. The ones that are easy to get to tend to be crowded. The ones that are harder to get to are … well, harder to get to. The result is that there typically are a lot fewer folks and the impact is less. That also means the trails tend to be rougher … or sometimes look nothing like a trail so much as a track through the meadows. Martin’s Park is one of those … it sits in a remote portion of the Olympic National Park with a minimum of a 16 mile hike to get there (and that’s the short route). There are quite a few folks that hike close to it … it sits near the Low Divide, on one of the main routes for those wishing to traverse the Olympic Park. The crossing now runs just about 50 miles … so those doing the hike tend to not have a lot of extra time for side trips. It’s beautiful country, though.
Not sure of the botanical identification of this lovely seed head I found in North Central Oregon. Probably a member of the sunflower family. Regardless, I was struck by its ability to maintain its shape while the wind was blowing pretty hard. It must not have been quite ready to spread itself yet.
The contrast between the green of the vanilla leaf and the intense purple of the trillium caught my eye. This must have been one of the latest blooming trillium in the area … it was the only one I saw with the leaves still attached.