Arnica

Heart-leaf Arnica ~ arnica cordifolia

Bear-grass is now blooming at the higher elevations, and it is a good year for it: thousands of flowers are covering the openings in the forest for miles. I was getting a few pictures of the Bear-grass today when this little Arnica flower just seemed to steal the show.

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Pretty common ~ Pretty flowers

 

Spreading Dogbane ~ Apocynum androsaemifolium

Three-spot Mariposa Lily (or) Pointed Tip Mariposa Lily

Pointed Tip Mariposa Lily ~ calochortus apiculatus

I have photographed this species many times but was never able to capture all of the different colors at its center until today. This one was growing in deep shade and I used some rather ridiculous camera settings: aperture priority with an aperture of f/32 and a -2 EV exposure bias and the on-board flash with flash compensation also set at -2.

Revett Lake Part 2 ~ The lake

Following are some of the photos of the lake that were taken yesterday.

Revett Lake, located in the Coeur d’Alene Mountains of eastern Idaho is a cirque lake, which means that it was formed by glacial activity when the glaciers began to melt and recede. The grinding activity of the decaying ice carved a steep wall, sometimes a cliff, from the high ridge above and formed a circular basin below, usually about a kilometer in diameter and filled with glacier melt or now, snow melt. This one must have some pretty good flowing springs in its bottom because it supports a robust all-year stream below it.

The trail head for Revett has access from the large parking area at Thompson Pass right on the Montana/Idaho border by a mile long road just on the Idaho side. Thompson Pass can be reached by taking highway 471 from Thompson Falls Montana of from the Idaho side by the highway that goes through Murray Idaho (my Idaho map doesn’t show the number).

Revett Lake Part 1 ~ The trail

Now that at least most of the snow is gone from the higher terrain in this neck of the woods, hiking into the back country is becoming possible. Early this morning I headed out on a hike up to Revett Lake, a cirque lake situated on the Idaho side of the Montana/Idaho border in the Pan Handle National Forest, not knowing for sure if the snow had melted down enough to make the trail passable. I was pleased to see that it had, although still for about a quarter of the way I walked on tightly packed snow banks.

While the temperature in the northwestern Montana valleys approached 80º today, when I parked the Jeep at the trail head (at around 5,000 feet elevation), the temperature was in the upper 30’s. It was a beautiful day for hiking, with a pleasant breeze and scattered clouds drifting across a deep blue sky and so (guess what?): I took a lot of pictures.

For something a little different I decided to display my account of the trip in two posts, the first being just the trail itself and the second just of the lake. These photos are in the order in which I took them as I hiked the trail, and for those who are not familiar with hiking in the high back country I hope it will give some perspective about what its like as it goes up at the start, then down to a crossing over the stream that issues from the lake, and back up to the lake; for those who regularly hike such trails it can be a sample of the scenery along this one.

A flower called Self-heal

Self-heal ~ prunella vulgaris

Self-heal (sometimes called “Heal-all”) is common and widely distributed around the world, growing at low to mid elevations. It has been traditionally used for centuries for healing both internal and external bleeding, however testing on the extracts of the plant has not shown any basis for its reputed healing ability. At least in this region it seems to have a much longer blooming season than most wildflowers.