May 09 in the Rockies

[Lvandelft]

Great photographs, Cohan!

[cohan]

thanks luit

some more pics from site 4, Hector Lake, along highway 93, icefields parkway, not too far from lake louise;
late may was too early at that spot for many flowers,
caught a nice little sedgey thing
Carex sp?
a miss on this cute little thing with black buds--something like spring beauty?
unknown
and
Empetrum?

[cohan]

a few more shot through the windows of the moving vehicle, on the way back north along icefileds parkway (93) to david thompson highway (11) and east again towards kootenay plains..

note that farther west the landscape is wetter, drier as you go into the western edge of the rockies;
also note snow on the ground at high elevations; may 30; and i think they had snow a couple times after this....

[Linda_Foulis]

Stunning pictures, reminds me that I've been away from the mountains for too long.  Time for a road trip.

[Lesley Cox]

An amazing trip into deepest Canada Cohan. Thanks for taking us along. I love the Calypso orchids, so elegant in this harsh landscape.

I guess the Kootenay area is where Rag, the Kootenay ram came from?

[Hristo]

Thanks for posting the Calyspo bulbosa, one day I will see it in the flesh!!
Great thread Cohan, bravo!

[cohan]

Stunning pictures, reminds me that I've been away from the mountains for too long.  Time for a road trip.

thanks, linda--great to see someone so close to home! i just moved back to alberta summer 07, and up to now, the nearest person i've encountered growing anything interesting is lori in calgary, and some cactus folk in edmonton..
love to talk to find out what you are growing!

[cohan]

An amazing trip into deepest Canada Cohan. Thanks for taking us along. I love the Calypso orchids, so elegant in this harsh landscape.
I guess the Kootenay area is where Rag, the Kootenay ram came from?

hmm! there is  a reference i would have to look up! the kootenay's were a native tribe (terribly mistranscribed no doubt!) so the name is spread about a bit; apart from these plains in alberta, i think the larger area under the name is in british columbia,where it is a whole region, i think a mountain range (would have to look it up...lol) and a national park...

[cohan]

Thanks for posting the Calyspo bulbosa, one day I will see it in the flesh!!
Great thread Cohan, bravo!

thanks chris, and i do agree with you and lesley--i think this is one of the finest orchids anywhere, though of course small...
i will have some nice close shots of one flowering not far from my house, when i get caught up that far...lol

[cohan]

another roadside stop on the return trip, along the river, just past Lake Abraham, back in the Kootenay Plains, on the return trip..
this time there are some shots of your intrepid botaniser, since my friend joined me walking about...
funny how some of the best discoveries are accidental--my friend jumped down the river bank to take a picture of me standing above, and while down there, he said 'hey, come look at this pink flower!' having no idea what it was, but knowing it wasnt growing all over..
it was
Dodecatheon sp
i havent really figured out which is which;
this was a tiny thing, no more than 3-4inches tall; several other plants around, but no other flowers at this location; this flower was brutally difficult to shoot--not because its so small, i got smaller things much more easily, must be the camera didnt want to focus on that intense pink; i later found it again at another site, and that time failed utterly to capture one clear image!
also saw again what i called cabbageA from the first site, and later wondered if it really is
Brassicaceae sp?
it is a charming tiny thing, this site was so windy i couldnt get a clear shot, so held it btwn my fingers, the advantage of which is it shows the size!
Maianthemum stellatum
i presume, smaller than at home, and flowering a bit ahead of ours
and what i assume was going to be a great little daisy? nice fuzzy leaves no more than a couple of inches off the ground
Asteraceae?
and the ubiquitous but always charming
Arctostaphylos

[cohan]

some views from the same site...

[cohan]

continuing on back eastward toward home, along the scenic David Thompson Highway (11); the mountains are not as high as along the Icefields Parkway (banff-jasper), but this stretch is nice for the wide sweep of the views;
it was interesting to see Lake Abraham like this: the water levels so low, when we visited after the wet summers of 07 and 08 (esp 07) virtually all those expanses of dry rock you see (even dust storms in the lake bed!) were under water, up into the trees and bushes around the shores in places...

[cohan]

second last stop;
 i turned to look back up the road the way we had come, and saw this interesting sky (1 and 2)--they were doing some controlled burning in the forest off the road, just outside the banff park boundary(i think), it seemed pretty minor when we passed, but i guess this big billow of smoke (blending with the clouds, but not quite hiding..) must have been from that...

we had stopped to look at this pretty little lake/pond/slough, but i was surprised, as soon as i looked down to see flowers all about....

[Paul T]

Cohan,

I love the little Dodecatheon.  Beautiful!! That is one impressive plait as well.... must take a while to brush your hair when you take it out! 

[cohan]

grr--the cat sleeps in a cubby hole just behind the keyboard, and sometimes keeping him off the keyboard is difficult; he just erased the next post i was working on...lol
literally everywhere underfoot on the wet lakeshore--maybe alkaline? clayey, at times gravelly, rather than peaty; probably underwater at times of melt...
Primula mistassinica
no more than a couple of inches high...
i was pleased to see the
Dodecatheon sp
again, though completely unable to get a clear shot! dark pollen sacs suggest D conjugens?
and happier yet to see this sweet
Anemone parviflora
the second shot shows the relative size of the 3 species: the tiny anemone, even tinier primula above, and dodecatheon leaves to the upper left