Wildflower Walks

The Missoula Ranger District is planning prescribed fires at Pattee Canyon and Blue Mountain, possibly starting today, to “reduce surface fuel concentrations, promote ponderosa pine regeneration and rejuvenate forest floor vegetation.”
I’ll be interested to see the effects of the burns on wildflower blooms this spring and summer, particularly in Pattee Canyon. The area being treated [...]

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Do you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch? If so, the National Audubon Society has an app or two for you.
The society has digitized its popular field guides to wildflowers, birds, mammals and trees for use on the Apple touch-screen devices. Check out the Audubon Guides site for information, or buy the wildflower app [...]

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I saw my first buttercup in bloom this year on March 15 at Blue Mountain – but that wasn’t the earliest sighting around Missoula. Blog reader Paul Alaback wrote in an e-mail that they were out March 12 on Mount Sentinel, March 6 on Mount Jumbo and March 2 in the North Hills.
Alaback would know; [...]

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Western Montana’s wildflowers have arrived!
Buttercup buds and prairie smoke leaves have been out at Blue Mountain for a while, but on a walk up Waterworks Hill this weekend I saw my first true bloom of the season – pink tufts of Rocky Mountain douglasia growing from the gravelly soil along the ridge. Also poking out [...]

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Students at Missoula public schools and the University of Montana take spring break this year from March 29 to April 2, and that usually means time for family travel.
Why not plan a trip to see one of the best wildflower blooms in the West at Death Valley National Park in California?
From the park’s Web site:
Death [...]

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“March’s lamblike entry has brought reports of bitterroot sprouts on the hillsides and crocus blooms in the Missoula Valley,” writes reporter Rob Chaney in Tuesday’s Missoulian. I’ll have to ask him about those bitterroots.
And those brown leaves left hanging on trees since last fall’s cold snap? No need to worry – new growth will likely [...]

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The bluebirds and robins are flying about, and buttercups are on the verge of bursting open at Missoula’s Blue Mountain National Recreation Area. Spring is nearly here, and with it I return to blogging at a freshened-up WildflowerWalks.com.
While we wait for the wildflowers, here’s a bit of eye candy from the upcoming “Life” series by [...]

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