Short wildflower season for me

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Justin Grigg

This has been a great year for wildflowers in western Montana, but Wildflower Walks has been on hiatus, as you’ve probably noticed.

I’ve been recovering from personal injuries – a bad case of Achilles tendinitis in one leg and then not-as-bad post-tibial tendinitis in the other – and dealing with aging and injured dogs.

I finally went on my first couple of hikes of the season, and Wildflower Walks will be returning to tomorrow’s Missoulian, along with a write-up by reporter Gwen Florio about why it seems we’ve had such a colorful spring and summer!

Posted in Hiking, Missoula, Montana, Spring, Summer, Wildflowers | Leave a comment

Late bloom at Packer Meadows

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Justin Grigg

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Packer Meadows, June 2007

If you thought you missed the camas bloom at Packer Meadows near Lolo Pass, you’re in luck.

The blue flowers, which normally bloom in June, should peak within the next week, said Dan Shook, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks’ representative at the Lolo Pass Visitor Center.

“Probably about three days to five days is about perfect to look at the camas,” he said.

Shook said the flowers are about a month behind their normal peak bloom as a result of deep and lingering snow. This year, the snow depth topped out at 170 inches on March 4. Usually, he said, it’s in the 40- to 60-inch range. The record is 205 inches.
Snow kept Elk Meadows Road from the visitor center on U.S. Highway 12 at the Montana-Idaho border about a mile east to the meadows closed until the weekend of June 25-26.

For updates on the camas bloom, call the visitor center at (208) 942-1234 or the Powell Ranger Station at (208) 942-3113.

To get to Packer Meadows, drive eight miles south of Missoula on U.S. Highway 93 to Lolo, then 32 miles west on Highway 12 to the Lolo Pass Visitor Center. The meadows are about one mile east on Elk Meadows Road.

“It looks like a sea of blue,” Shook said.

Posted in Bitterroot Mountains, Hiking, Idaho, Spring, Travel, Wildflowers | 2 Comments

June bloom events in western Montana

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Justin Grigg

June is here, and western Montana wildflower-related events are picking up.

On Tuesday, June 7, join the Flathead Chapter of the Montana Native Plant Society and Glacier National Park biologist Tara Carolin for a two-hour walk up the Columbia Mountain trail east of Columbia Falls to see spring blooms. Meet at the Columbia Mountain trailhead at 6 p.m. Bring water and a sack dinner. For more information, contact Carolin at 755-9412 or writetaraywc@yahoo.com.

The Glacier Institute will lead a spring wildflower walk in the Marias Pass area from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday, June 10. The “Spring Wildflowers Along the Rocky Mountain Front” course with instructor Ellen Horowitz is for ages 18 and older, and is limited to 13 participants. Meet at the Glacier National Park Field Camp Meeting Hall. Fee is $65.

On Saturday, June 11, from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., the Clark Fork Chapter of the Montana Native Plant Society will hold its biennial “Native Plant Garden Tour and Low Tea.” Visit native plant gardens in the Rattlesnake Valley and meet the people who created them. The tour can be done by bicycle, and directions will be handed out from 10:30 to 11 a.m. on the south side of the Montana Native Plant Gardens at the old Botany greenhouse west of the University of Montana’s University Center. Plants and seeds will be available for sale, and the tour will end with refreshments from 3 to 5:30 p.m. Bring water, snacks and lunch. Call 258-5439 for more information.

On two Thursdays, June 16 and 30, the Montana Natural History Center will hold its “miniNaturalists at the Gardens” program from 10 to 11 a.m. at the Fort Missoula Native Plant Gardens. Cost is $1 per child for MNHC members, $3 nonmembers. The program is best for ages 2 to 5, and children must be accompanied by an adult. The program engages youngsters in the exploration of the natural world through fun hands-on activities, games and play in a native plant garden setting. For more information, call 327-0405.

Finishing the month is the 2011 Mountain-to-Meadow Half Marathon and 5K Fun Run at Lolo Pass, on U.S. Highway 12 on the Montana-Idaho border. Both races pass Packer Meadows, which are usually full of blooming camas. Registration deadline for the Saturday, June 25, races is Wednesday, June 22. Cost is $25, with children ages 12 and younger free. The race begins at the visitor center at 7:30 a.m. PDT. For more information, email runlolopass@discovernw.org.

Posted in Flathead Valley, Glacier National Park, Hiking, Idaho, Missoula, Montana, Spring, Summer, Wildflowers | Leave a comment

Birthday bouquet at National Bison Range

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Justin Grigg

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The National Bison Range in Moiese celebrated its 103rd birthday on Monday, but it was refuge visitors who received a gift – a bouquet of wildflowers.

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A weekend trip over the 19-mile Red Sleep Mountain Drive revealed the range to be in full bloom. Among the flowers seen were fields of golden arrowleaf balsamroot interspersed with purple larkspur, patches of red prairie smoke, stalks of yellow paintbrush, small white prairie stars, bunches of bluish Jacob’s Ladder and wild hyacinth, and more. Bitterroots have yet to bloom, but their green tendrils are sprouting from rocks near the top of the mountain.

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In addition to wildflowers, there was plenty of wildlife to see: Bison, a black bear, pronghorns, deer and a variety of birds. We missed the bighorn sheep, but they’re out there somewhere, too.

If you take a drive up to the Bison Range in the near future, be sure to stretch your legs on the half-mile round-trip Bitterroot Trail and the 1-mile round-trip High Point Trail near the top of the drive. There’s also a mile-long nature trail near the picnic area.

Check out more photos from the Bison Range here.

Posted in Hiking, Montana, National Bison Range, Spring | 1 Comment

On the trail of flowers in Utah

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Justin Grigg

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Every year, my wife and I try to take hiking-centered spring vacation. This year, we detoured to Utah on the way to a family gathering in Denver.

Every few years, we make our way down to the national parks and other public lands in the southern part of the state. This time, we stuck pretty close to Moab, visiting both Arches and Canyonlands national parks. We’ve been to both may times before, but still found trails we hadn’t explored.

In Canyonlands, a park ranger suggested we try the Neck Spring trail, noting that its moisture produced an abundance of plant life. Sure enough, we saw plenty of flowers, including the Utah penstemon above.

Here are more photos from Canyonlands, as well as pictures from Arches and the trail to Corona Arch outside of Moab.

Perhaps the best part of the trip was hiking 10 miles in one day. It’s the most I’ve hiked in recovering from an Achilles injury over the winter, and bodes well for spring and summer.

Posted in Hiking, Spring, Travel, Utah, Wildflowers | Leave a comment

Wildflowers go mobile

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Justin Grigg

The National Audubon Society and Green Mountain Digital recently released the Audubon Wildflowers app for Android smartphones. The app is a mobile version of the Audubon Guides website and has been available for a while for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

In the app, users can browse more than 1,600 wildflowers found in the United States and Canada by shape, name or family. It includes range maps and more than 3,000 color photos of flowers. Users can report their sightings, take pictures and keep flower lists.

The app also allows users to download the full flower database to their phone’s SD card, presumably to allow access in areas where there is no cellphone service.

My favorite feature, though, is the advanced search, which allows users to filter by a variety of criteria, including shape, habitat, color, month, plant and flower size, leaf type and arrangement, and more.

At 17 megabytes, it’s a fairly large app and caused some memory errors on my HTC Droid Incredible when I first installed it. After some changes to my phone’s settings, though, the app appears to be working fine.

Normally priced at $9.99, Audubon Wildflowers is on sale for $4.99 through the end of May.

Posted in Hiking, Montana, Wildflowers | Leave a comment

Wildflower events for Mom and more in May

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Justin Grigg

I’m a little late for a couple of early May wildflower events, but here’s what’s going on the rest of the month:

The Clark Fork Chapter of the Montana Native Plant Society has a Mother’s Day outing to see trilliums on Sunday, May 8. Tarn Ream will discuss her 10-year study of Trillium ovatum on an easy trip into the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area that will be co-led by botanist Peter Stickney. Meet at 2 p.m. at the main Rattlesnake trailhead. Call 258-5439 for information.

On Saturday, May 21, the Montana Native Plant Society will hold its annual sale at the Missoula Farmers Market. More than 70 species of Montana native plants will be for sale from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the market at the north end of Higgins Avenue.

Also May 21, the Montana Natural History Center will discuss “Flower Power” for its Saturday Kids’ Activity. The program will look at flowers’ ability to attract pollinators from miles away. It’s at 2 p.m. at 120 Hickory St. Admission is $1 per child for MNHC members and $3 for nonmembers. Children must be accompanied by an adult, and the program is suited for ages 5 and older.

On Sunday, May 29, Alpine Artisans and the Swan Ecosystem Center will lead a hike to Holland Falls to view early blooming flowers. Check with the Swan Ecosystem Center for additional information.

Posted in Hiking, Missoula, Montana, Rattlesnake, Seeley-Swan Valley, Spring, Swan Range, Wildflowers | Leave a comment

Western Montana wildflower events for April

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Justin Grigg

Any April showers this year will accompany a handful of wildflower-related events around western Montana.

The Calypso Chapter of the Montana Native Plant Society will hold its fourth annual “Gardening with Natives” program this Saturday, April 2, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Divide Grange Hall, one mile west of Interstate 15 on Montana Highway 43. Topics include garden design, plant selection, pest control, sustainable gardening, blogging and more. Bring a sack lunch. Make a reservation with Catherine Cain at (406) 498-6198 or nativeplants@montana.com.

On Thursday, April 14, the Clark Fork Chapter of the Montana Native Plant Society offers an early-season refresher with photographers showing slides of western Montana’s grassland wildflowers. The event is at 7:30 p.m. in the University of Montana’s Gallagher Business Building, Room L09 .

From Saturday, April 16, to Sunday, April 24, the National Park Service waives entrance fees to more than 100 parks, including Glacier and Yellowstone. Snow will probably linger, but it’s hard to beat free.

On Wednesday, April 20, the Flathead Chapter of the Montana Native Plant Society has several events scheduled. At 4 p.m., the group will spruce up the Native Plant Garden at Glacier Discovery Square, 540 Nucleus Ave. in Columbia Falls. Bring garden tools and gloves. The chapter will hold a general meeting open to all at 5:30 p.m. Bring a sack dinner. And at 7 p.m., Lindsey Bengston, a biological research technician from the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center in West Glacier, will talk about the Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments, or GLORIA, in Glacier National Park. The initiative is establishing a worldwide network of long-term alpine observation sites that will collect data to assess and predict losses in biodiversity.

Join the Montana Natural History Center from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 28, for its Spring Spruce-Up and Plant Sale at the Fort Missoula Native Plant Gardens. Wear  work clothes and bring gloves to the gardens, under the silver water tower at Fort Missoula.

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Wildflowers 2011, the story

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Justin Grigg

Spring’s first wildflowers have arrived, and one of the first places you can find my reports is in my Twitter feed. However, unless you check often, those tweets can quickly pass.

Enter Storify. I’ve been experimenting with this new tool that allows you to pick information – tweets, photos, videos, etc. – out of the social media landscape and preserve it as a single narrative. I’ve started a collection for this year’s wildflower season, below, and will continue to update it throughout spring and summer.

If you’re looking for my most recent wildflower reports, check back at this post or my Storify page.

Posted in Hiking, Missoula, Montana, Spring, Summer, Wildflowers | Leave a comment

Western Montana wildflower events for March

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Justin Grigg

With spring on the way, the Montana Native Plant Society has a couple of events in advance of the season:

On Wednesday, March 16, the Flathead chapter will hold “Celebrating Glacier’s Centennial: A Botanical Journey.” Photographer Chris Peterson will share his images of Glacier National Park’s flora – as well as fauna and scenery – at 7 p.m. at Glacier Discovery Square, 540 Nucleus Ave., in Columbia Falls. The event is free. For more information, call Rachel Potter at (406) 892-2446.

On Tuesday, March 29, the Clark Fork chapter will hold an Herbarium Night. Botanist Peter Lesica will offer tips on learning common plant families. The event is at 7:30 p.m. in Room 303 of the Botany Building on the University of Montana campus.

Posted in Flathead Valley, Hiking, Missoula, Montana, Spring, Wildflowers | Leave a comment