Wildflowers of the Sawtooths

Many wildflowers bloomed during my August backpacking trek through Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. I am slowly identifying them — I think the top one is a Bear River fleabane — but I don’t want that process to keep me from sharing these photos. Enjoy!

White mariposa lily?

Yes, that’s frost on those yellow flowers — a kind of stonecrop, I think. There were several mornings in the 20s. As I hiked on, the flowers began to fade, as though they knew winter was almost here.

Taperleaf penstemon?

Rough fleabone?

Definitely a kind of Indian paintbrush. Perhaps the wavy-leaf variety?

There were several varieties of paintbrushes blooming in these mountains. Most were a dull, dusty red, but this one was much more vibrantly colored.

Western water hemlock?

Those purple flowers grew only among the crevasses on a steep, south-facing slope above the treeline.

Berries adorned many of the bushes in the lower elevations, especially along Baron Creek and the South Fork Payette River. I think this one is an Oregon grape.

Definitely a lupine, kin to our beloved bluebonnets. Possibly a silver lupine.

Fringed grass-of-Parnassus?

This last one is not from the Sawtooths but instead from the volcanic plain of the Snake River:

These sunflowers covered the roadsides of southern Idaho.

Potentially related posts:

• Lakes of the Sawtooths, Part 3
• Lakes of the Sawtooths, Part 1
• Lakes of the Sawtooths, Part 4
• Wildflowers in the Rockies
• Lakes of the Sawtooths, Part 2
• Farewell to the Sawtooths
• Sierra del Carmen at Sunset (11/9)