07/17/2025
Spent a few days up Shepherd Ridge from a bushwhack starting at 240 m to 1945 m in the alpine. There were so many fantastic plants along the way that I had to stop and and take some photos and admire them. There were many that I missed because I was huffing and puffing and dragging myself up vertical forest or scrambling along a snow-covered rock ledge, or slipping down some heather and needed all my hands and feet!
these photos are in order from lower elevation to highest elevation and back down again!
1. Candystick, Allotropa virgata (more than I have ever seen in my life, it was hard not to step on it for a few hundred metres)
2. Green-flowered wintergreen, Pyrola chlorantha
3. Rydberg’s springbeauty, Claytonia multiscapa
4. Coast range lomatium, Lomatium martindalei
5. Harsh paintbrush, Castilleja hispida
6. Lodgepole pine, Pinus contora (this one was growing at about 1800 m which felt extra special to me because I’ve never seen one at this elevation before! There were quite a few clusters of them gathered low on the steep slopes)
7. Rocky Mountain pussytoes, Antennaria media
8. Creeping sibbaldia, Sibbaldia procumbens
9. Sickletop lousewort, Pedicularis racemosa
10. Pacific stonecrop, Sedum divergent
11. Blueleaf cinquefoil, Potentilla glaucophylla
12. Cascade wallflower, Erysimum arenicola
13. Lanceleaf arnica, Arnica lanceolata
14. Pimpernel willowherb, Epilobium anagallidifolium
15. Silky phacelia, Phacelia sericea
16. Rock moss, Racomitrium spp.?
17. Russethair saxifrage, Micranthes ferruginea
18. White-flowered rhododendron, Rhododendron albiflorum
19. Green-false hellebore, Veratrum viride
20. Pipsissewa, Chimaphila umbellata