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)
Tags: aug09 idaho trip, bees, butterflies, insects, macro shots, sawtooth wilderness, wildflowers