Unless You Look Down

If you can take your eyes off the mountain long enough, you will soon discover that the flowers are equally breathtaking. The new Visitor’s Center had a display of mountain flowers, and I was particularly struck by how far phlox, a rather dainty flower at first glance, roots penetrated the soil, making it possible to grow in places other flowers can’t. Needless to say, on this trip I saw phlox everyone,

Phlox

though I’m not sure I ever noticed them before.

Of course, it’s impossible to look at flowers closely like these Asters

Bee on Aster

without also noticing the insects that thrive on them. On this day, the bees seemed to drawn to the purple flowers, whether Asters or Jacob’s Ladder.

Jacob's Ladder

In sheer numbers, the bees far outnumbered the butterflies,

Butterfly on Aster

but this butterfly, an Edith’s Checkerspot, I think, seemed everywhere I looked.

Best of all, the Indian Paintbrush was magnificent, whether the passionate pink variety that dominated lower altitudes,

Indian Paintbrush

or the lovely orange varieties that dominated at higher altitudes.

Indian Paintbrush

3 thoughts on “Unless You Look Down”

  1. You new template is looking good! And I appreciate the daily tweets from the Dalai Lama.

    Don’t know if I will get up to the mountains this year, so it is good to see your mountain views and mountain flowers. Especially like the Edith’s Checkerspot photo. Wonderful name for a butterfly.

    Today while walking in Whatcom Falls Park, I saw a fluttering shadow on the ground that I thought was from a butterfly. When I looked up, I saw what I thought for a second was a yellow butterfly, but then realized it was a yellow leaf falling. It was a beautiful day today, wasn’t it?

  2. It’s been beautiful all week, really. Hope I don’t get spoiled.

    Too bad you can’t get up to the mountain this year. All the snow/rain seemed to have created more flowers than usual, at least at Sunrise.

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