Endless Wildflowers and a Wild, Beautiful Ride

Stiff Sunflower

While mountain scenes proved difficult to photograph with precision, I found my usual joy in taking close ups of wild flowers on our recent travels in beautiful Colorado. The sheer variety of wildflowers is truly amazing, which I think reflects the wide range of ecosystems that flourish within different locales depending on geography, weather, soil, etc. 

I took pictures throughout the week as I came upon them. These were among the first that I spied in Estes Park. I used my Seek App to identify them. 

A member of the Paintbrushes genus

Salsifies genus—Its structure reminded us of a giant dandelion.

A type of Western Coneflower

A type of Beardtongue

Blanket Flower

Rocky Mountain Bee Plant

When we planned the trip, we thought it would be fun to take some ‘off the beaten’ path type roads to see what we might see. We rented a jeep that could handle the gravel/rocky roads—jacked up (and who knows what else..) Talk about a BUMPY and at times perilous ride! I admit that my mind and body pretty quickly shifted into hang on tight mode with every muscle of my body taught. Eventually I was able to relax a bit and enjoy the scenery. And to my delight, there were fields of amazing beauty waiting for me and my camera. ;-) 

Plumeless Thistle

A different type of Blanket Flower (although it looks very similar to the flower below, its habit was quite different with he petals standing straight out to the side. Hmm…)

Seek says this is a member of the Sunflowers, Daisies, Asters, and Allies. (I think it looks like Echinacea.) I love how its petals dangle down like golden hair.

Harebell

American Asters

Blue Columbine

Gunnison’s Mariposa Lily

This was my favorite wildflower discovery that blew me away!

And then there was this large field of Alpine Thistle that I could’ve gazed at all afternoon. 

Our last day was spent in the Boulder area where I snapped a few more pics of the endless CO wildflowers.

Seek calls these Sweet Peas and Vetchlings 

Here we are on our last hike at the Flatirons in Boulder. You can see the haze of smoke that had drifted in overnight from the Oregon wildfires. We were grateful that the haze was not nearly this bad until our last day. 

I’m convinced I could’ve spent days photographing wildflowers. These just happened to be along the route of our very busy/active vacation. I would love to go back and spend time just honed in on wildflowers to see what all I might discover. I think a western wildflower book might be in order before our next visit. 

I’ll do one more post of our trip that covers an exciting drive on Old Fall River Road to the Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was quite exciting as we practically chased a thunderstorm that was making its way through the park at sunset.