Another Toad Lake tour

We like to revisit places we've been before, often earlier or later in the season, or--really--just another year, because every trip is unique, every winter has more or less water, every summer more and more heat.  Catch the site on a different week and there will likely be a whole new palette of bloom and leaf, a variation in the bird chorus, an unexpected bee swarm or a green rattlesnake to see.

Our 2015 visit to Toad and Porcupine lakes, at the head of the middle fork of the Sacramento River, followed a lovely wet winter and featured an explosion of riotous wildflowers.  This trip took place only two weeks later in the year--after one of the driest years on record.  There were still plenty of flowers, and my favorite were these Epilobium siskiyouense, on the ridge saddle between the two lakes, in lean, rocky soils: