Strolling the Tour de Suds

This week's Friday Afternoon [Hiking] Club involved a 4 hour walk in my favorite direction: downhill!

Through a Sunflower meadow:

Along a rocky trail, where brightly blooming purple Asters speckle the landscape:

Wildflowers exert a grand effort, feeling the competition on all sides. Suddenly everyone is in the mood to put on a pretty show:

Farther down the mountain, we abandoned the sunny meadows for the cool shade of an Aspen forest:

Where Monarch Butterflies munch wild Milkweed:

Black bears (oh, my!)* nibble on the plentiful berries:

And, flower lovers, such as me and KC, brazenly snoop around secret gardens ~ aka people's backyards in the Old Town neighborhood of Park City.

This Downhill Day
To do this much hiking without putting forth any effort at all, one must first make like tourists and ride the Deer Valley Ski Lift to the top of Bald Eagle Mountain.

From there, we meandered downhill to the legendary Tour de Suds hiking/biking/misbehaving trail that, sooner or later, drops you right in front of a brew pub. Long live our Mountain Trail Foundation. I mean... is that fantastic planning or what?

PS: I don't believe there are any bears around here. Squirrels, maybe, but I don't think they'll eat you.

Who Could It Be?

Mystery Flower #1

Was wandering aimlessly around the garden very early this morning. Sipping coffee and working on a flimsy excuse to skip an upcoming birthday party.

Mystery Flower #2

When I was stopped dead in my tracks by this strange thing in the photo above. Hey! Is this a Stargazer Lily? Did I plant this? When did I do that?

Mystery Flower #3

Perhaps this forgetfulness is a direct result of me inching ever closer to the 5th decade.

Or, maybe I've become scattered as my gardens grow by leaps and bounds. Whatever the reason, it's a little worrisome when I'm the only gardener around this joint and I haven't a clue what things are or where they came from.

Now the upside to all this confusion is that I've found my flimsy excuse to skip the party. I'm having a senior moment and I plum forgot.

Mystery Flower #4

Last but not least... who is this little darling?

They grow wild, in tiny bunches, in the grass.

This is me taking the photo. :)

Splendid Days @ Albion Basin

"Heaven is overrated." ~ Coldplay

This week's Friday Afternoon (hiking) Club took place on Monday morning... because that's just how wildly unpredictable we are.

We set our sites on the Cecret Lake. No... I didn't spell 'secret' wrong. Some other weirdo spelled it wrong ages ago and it's been driving people crazy ever since.

Especially me since, at one point, I had strongly considered becoming a high school teacher. Then I did my student teaching where I was forced to interact with real, live, high school kids.. and... well... say no more.

I'm NOT thinking about high school kids because I have an ounce of fondness for them. Quite the opposite! Oh, they're cute and all ~ if you happen to be the parent of one of them ~ but I'm a Mom who survived those teenage years.

May I just say? 'Lock 'em up, throw away the key' is not always a bad idea.

To get to Secret Lake you hike up and up and up a little bit more. You don't really notice all the walking uphill because you're traipsing through expansive fields of wildflowers every step of the way.

When we reached the actual 'Cecret Lake,' [Argh! That name drives me nuts!] we were confronted with hordes of teenagers.

On a Monday? How fair is that? When will we see the shift to 12 months, every year, kids in school? Because that would be good for the nation as a whole and especially me!

We walked to an out of the way giant rock where we could eat our lunch and observe the teens as we do monkeys in a zoo. (It's really not all that different.)

Then, I looked down to see one enterprising teen rock-climbing his way to the top of our own personal boulder! As teenagers go, the kid was fairly well-trained. (Good job, Mom!) He said, "Thanks! I just wanted to see if I could do that!"

I was dying to be all sarcastic and demand: Do what? Spoil my lunch? But, I couldn't. Because, you see, I'm only allowed to be a bitch once a day.

And, I'd already hollered at some poor Latvian tourist for picking the wildflowers...

Reason #9 for not picking those wildflowers: They are COVERED with bugs. Vicious, nasty, carnivorous, creepy crawlies that will eat you up from the inside out.

Okay, fine, maybe that's stretching things a bit but I still wish you would just lay off picking the wildflowers. It doesn't do me, or you, any good.

* Wildflower identification! Are you dying to know? Me, too!

From top photo to bottom photo:

1. Damned if I know!
2. Damned if I know.
3. Damned if I know :(
4. I just take the pictures. Perhaps you're smart enough to identify them.

*Albion Basin is renowned for having a broader variety of wildflowers than any area of similar size in the USA. At 10,000 foot elevation, with plentiful snowfall, this basin is a unique experience of alpine and sub-alpine wildflowers that bloom in a compressed, 3 - 4 week, period of time.

Wildflower Wednesdays

Wildflowers of Cascade Springs:
It's been raining like crazy and the wildflowers are going nuts. I'm not very good at identifying wildflowers so if you know who they are, send me an email...

I am (for the most part) a pretty good girl. A task master I guess you'd call me. Scribbling out a list every morning and chipping away at that mountain of pesky chores. The ones we all have. Those things which need doing.

Only some days I throw up my hands and think: "What is the point? Does anyone ever notice?"

But, of course, they do notice. Not so much your successes. Pretty much only the failures. (Clean the house, they'll find a dusty corner. Weed your entire garden and rest assured, the first visitor who stops by will point out the one weed you missed.)

'Tis an odd quirk of humans ~ how they tend to search high and low to find fault. As if it's too much for them to look beyond the small details, embrace a big picture, and simply say: "Wow. You did a good job."

And, that I think, is what prompted me to be an hour and a half late getting back to the office yesterday. No, I did not forget about that conference call. I was just having a hard time remembering why it mattered!

Coming back from my riding lesson, I impulsively took a left turn and scooted 7 miles off the beaten path. To a special little decompression chamber called Cascade Springs.

You don't need 4WD on the bumpy road to Cascade Springs. However! Good shock absorbers are worth their weight in gold.

Because sometimes just walking outdoors and breathing the free air can bring a tired soul [like mine] back to life.

* Cascade Springs is located above the Heber Valley (Utah) near Sundance. When I got there they wanted 10 bucks to get in so these photos were taken outside the real place.

Sunflower Meadows

Find this pretty trail in the foothills above Red Butte Gardens.

Bad Dog packed his party bandanna and took off on a desert camping trip... without me.

I don't know that I've ever had really high self-esteem but it's lower these days because I can't even compete with a dog and win. He's way more popular than I am.

For the next few weeks these mountain meadows will be saturated with big, cheery sunflower impostors. Do you know what they really are?*

There is an upside to the dog heading down south for the weekend. We got to spend our Friday Afternoon Club on one of those No Mutts Allowed! trails.

So, I guess we showed him.

Swallowtails were in 7th heaven, along the Mountain Meadow Trail.

Who Could it Be?

Is this big yellow wildflower a:

• Curly Cup Gumweed
• Mountain Meadow Groundsel
• Showy Goldeneye

The hiking trails above Red Butte Gardens are speckled with wildflowers. Well worth the $6 fee.

* However! If you're feeling slightly broke, (and who isn't, these days???) Make a right turn, right before you enter the Red Butte Gardens drive. Grab the first on-street parking space you see. Look on the east side of the street to find the first of the free trails that winds up into the foothills. These trails allow dogs and they don't cost you a dime.

Bush Clover

Bush Clover

Flat ground rarely exists in a mountain town. So, think about that when you're fertilizing your lawn. Nitrogen will run off ~ down the hill, and into streams. Fertilizer encourages invasive plants to grow thick and strong and ultimately clog up our pretty, babbling brooks.

However!
There's an upside to run off, too...

As we ride our horses along the trails in Park City, we see the fun results of dedicated gardeners living atop the many hills. Wildflower seeds are running downhill, too, sprouting in the most unlikely places.

Which is why we are currently blessed with fall blooming, Bush Clover.

It’s a graceful plant, ultra xeric, with a weeping, mounded habit. Pretty pink flowers begin to bloom in late summer and will continue until the first hard frost. It absolutely loves dry, infertile soil and hot, hot sun. (Which is probably why it made the great escape from their well-sprinkled gardens!)

Bush Clover: Lespedeza thunbergii 'Gibraltar' and Lespedeza thunbergii 'Pink Fountains' are 2 great varieties for Southwest xeric gardens. USDA zones: 4-8, grows to approximately 4-5 feet in a waterwise garden. (If you give it a drink, it will surely die.)

Wasatch Wildflowers

Planting season comes late up here in the mountains. While I'm waiting for my own garden to bloom, I stroll the trails behind my home. These little blue flowers are a welcome sign of spring. I live in an area that is suddenly overrun with tourists. Please don't pick wildflowers. It's hard to resist but the future of our meadows depend upon it. When so many people tromp off the designated trails, they ruin everything in site. Help these little guys along. Instead of picking them, empty your water bottle on them. During dry springs, extra watering makes all the difference. One ultra healthy wild plant can reseed an entire meadow.