share comments/pictures about your travels to interesting floral areas
Today, we enjoyed a hike to Sparrowhawk Tarns in Peter Lougheed Prov. Park in Kananaskis Country.
Despite the snowfall (even more than last year), it appears a few days of "hot" weather (all things being relative) have advanced things along in this area beyond last year's extremely late spring. Having said that though, it was still early up there.
Trailside stream... the same flow that starts way up at the top, actually...
Our first hike of the year in this late spring was yesterday to Forgetmenot Ridge in Kananaskis Park, Alberta. The trailhead is a 45 minute drive west of here. Despite the VERY strong wind, I was surprised that a few of the pictures turned out reasonably in focus - the plants were always being blown around, and my camera hand often was too!
On the way up:
We took a drive out to Kananaskis yesterday to take a look... we didn't hike but only scaled up a roadside slope to check things out, bloom-wise, and were pleased to find a nice selection of foothills/prairie plants in bloom...
The brilliant blue of Penstemon nitidus on the clay slope was what caught my eye while driving...
We are staying at St Dalmas about 8 km west of St Martin Vesubie. On our first day we hiked up Tete du Barn (2529 m) above Col du Barn. The access was excellent as we could drive to 2000 m on a paved road above St Dalmas.
Just got back from 4 days of meetings on the Port-au-Port peninsula of western Newfoundland. We were specifically looking at the population of Hedysarum boreale...it was just listed as a Species at Risk in Newfoundland. The plants are restricted to this little outlier of our limestone barrens..there are about 600 plants. Here are some scenes from this special part of Newfoundland.
Fed up with this never-ending winter, I arranged a spur-of-the-moment trip out to Vancouver for my mom, sister and myself over the Easter weekend! As luck would have it, it was a late spring out there too, but we enjoyed walking around a couple of gardens, in one day of sunshine and one of rain.
Here are a few photos from Van Dusen (excuse the water drops on the camera lens - this was the rainy day!)
Lanhydrock is a house and estate now owned by our National Trust, more information here:-
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-lanhyd...
Hi all, I'll post here some images of Alberta plants, both on my acreage (in the 'wild parts') the family farm (uncle and cousins now, was my grandparents' farm) this acreage was carved from, botanising bike rides around my area, and occasional day trips into foothills, mountains, and other areas in Alberta..
Here it is a dull season, still some weeks to the first snowdrops and snowflake open their bells.
While waiting I looked at some pictures from previous times.
The first 4 is from tours in the Ryfylkeheiene, a montane area between east and west in the south of Norway. Not the most alpine landscape but rather wild many places. Used to bring students there to learn outdoor life, ecology and names of common plants (unbelievable what they can not!).
The 4. shows a tourist cabin open for all hikers, but you have to borrow a key. In Norway it is hundreds of such places.
A new year for me brings a strong desire to sort and rearrange - while in the process I came across a book by Hans Itten - The Alpine Garden of Schynige Platte - 1955. While visiting Switzerland a few years ago, much to my chagrin, we bypassed this fabled garden in favor of the Jungfrau (top of Europe). I am wondering if I missed much and if it is still being kept up. I understand one of the 007 movies was filmed up there. It was July/August and I didn't see many wild flowers - except clumps of Erica carnea seen through the car (moving) window. Fran