Teeny, tiny plants take over

We took the one-mile hike off the Pacific Crest Trail to Hidden Lake, south of Carter Summit, to find the tiniest of flowering plants carpeting the exposed, sunny talus on the way there.  Teeny dots of white, pink, blue, yellow, fuchsia--an entire garden of miniature marvels.  (Click on any photo to see larger.)

The delightful and undaunted monkeyflower:

A Calochortus lily, C. elegans, no bigger than your thumbnail, hiding in the huckleberry oak:

Ball-headed sandwort:

We don't know what this one is.  Do you?

The well-named pink pussy paws:

Rock and heat-loving sedum:

Little Maiden Mary Blue Eyes:

And one big one: Purple milkweed (which, technically, is a cluster of tiny flowers).

On the way to this eponymous hidden treasure, a cool respite from the heat of the trail:

The view to Mt. Shasta is paved with phlox

Yreka Phlox (P. hirsuta), that is.  Here's this year's bouquet to the mountain, from its home on China Hill on the NE side of Yreka:

Late Season in the Eddys

Leopard lilies flame above the dry skeletons of corn lily on the Parks Creek/Deadfall Lake trail section of the PCT.

Sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale), bog lily, tall onion and yarrow still bloom in the fen fields at the top.

Prostrate yew, Pacific rhododendron, sneezeweed, cobra lilies and leopard lilies grace the flank of a spring on the Caldwell Lakes trail nearby.

Gentian bursts blue from the cobra lily fen.

Bistort maybe?  and Cirsium andersonii (Anderson's thistle) in the decomposed granite of the trail.

Sex In the Sagebrush

Back at Willow Creek Mountain, these two furry and charismatic megamoths, Hemileuca hera marcata, engaged in a long, meditative exchange of bodily fluids as they clung to their caterpillar host food Artemisia tridentata. I love the ferny black antennae, furry orange bodies and striking patterning of these beauties.

More delicate, but just as striking, the rare endemic Greene's Mariposa Lily at Little Shasta Meadows Botanical Area on Willow Creek Mountain.

Return to Little Shasta Meadows

After an astonishingly wet winter and a fairly long, easy spring, we escaped the heat of Yreka (84-degree day, heavens!) by heading up to the high country on the east side.  We caught Little Shasta Meadows in that awkward stage, between the yellow bells and lewisia and before the camas and mariposa lilies.  Instead, the meadows were filled with buttercups and larkspur--and showed the promise of what is to come a little later in the season.

Most of the snow has melted, making creeks run cold and fast.  Here a little water backs up

 into a calm pool just right for incubating tadpoles and mosquitoes.

A few of the camas lilies are beginning to bud open.

And pedicularis, which loves to have its feet wet, pops up in amongst the buttercups.

Pearl marble butterflies keep other pollinators company on a native mustard.

Mid-Summer on the East Side:

From mountain meadows to the mountain top we go.

Sophie romps through the lush meadows at Martin's Dairy Campground where the creek still runs strong.

We found butterflies meeting to muddle in the
drying headwaters of the Little Shasta River.

Cascade Calicoflower specializes in sites that start wet and slowly dry through the summer.

Greene's Mariposa Lily is a rare native endemic that prefers dry sites on Willow Mountain.

Mountain Pride or Cliff Penstemon wreathed
the Goosenest crater.

Dwarf Hulsea or Alpine Gold loves the loose volcanic gravels atop Goosenest.

Hiking the trail to the top of Goosenest afforded a view of the north slope of Mt. Shasta,
with Herd Peak in the middle distance.

Swimming on the 4th of July

it was hot.  It was the 4th of July.  So we did what all good patriots do and found a swimming hole.  This hike took us from Toad Lake to Porcupine Lake in the Shasta-Trinity NF, and the flowers were blooming like firecrackers in the high mountain meadows.

Daisies and asters, tiger lilies and corn lilies, a small endemic epilobium and tall bear grass, the meadows were blooming red, white, blue, yellow and orange.

And bookending the meadows were these two pools of cool blue water.