Hurrul
Gold Member
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2017
- Messages
- 1,346
While parts of the US see spring in March and April....and earlier, South West Montana is only recently showing it's spring ways.
On a hike yesterday in the Bridger Mountain range, my wife and I traveled into an area that benefits from greater sunlight exposure due to a west facing aspect of the hills and slopes and limited forest coverage at the lower elevation foot hills.
This means that in this particular zone, spring is about 2 weeks ahead of areas that don't green up as early due to different directional alignment to the sun, tree coverage, proximity to low lying areas that hold cooler temps longer through out the day, and general mountain topography creating shadow spots/zones.
Wild Parsely was very abundant, from the trailhead and through out the hike:
Does taste like domestic parsley, but more mild.
Spring Beautys were starting to come out - these have a wonderful, edible corm (like a tuber) that is a bit nutty in flavor, with a potato like consistency.
These Pasque flowers (or Prairie Crocus) were not open when we walked by them earlier in the day, but had popped and were in display a few hours later.
As well, but not photographed, we saw Early Buttercups, Yellow Bells, Prairie Smoke, and just emerging Arrow Leaf Balsam Root.
Bridger Range alpine high country and the North Cottonwood drainage:
I could not decide which "hiking buddy" to bring, so I brought two (giant piece of fatwood in the background):
Because I love the puzzle of hunting down pitchwood/ fatwood (and this particular area has it in great amounts and in trophy sized specimens)....
A nice rib, still welded to the dead tree that is slowly decaying to reveal it's left behind treasure.
You can see the degree of saturation in the gold exterior (sap being pushed through the wooden structure to appear on the outside of the piece) and dark amber veins.
Brought home 2 specimens....
one of which I had to cut in half to get it to fit safely in the back of the Subaru. Looks like candy and good enough to eat...should burn like mad.
Thanks for reading.
On a hike yesterday in the Bridger Mountain range, my wife and I traveled into an area that benefits from greater sunlight exposure due to a west facing aspect of the hills and slopes and limited forest coverage at the lower elevation foot hills.
This means that in this particular zone, spring is about 2 weeks ahead of areas that don't green up as early due to different directional alignment to the sun, tree coverage, proximity to low lying areas that hold cooler temps longer through out the day, and general mountain topography creating shadow spots/zones.
Wild Parsely was very abundant, from the trailhead and through out the hike:
Does taste like domestic parsley, but more mild.
Spring Beautys were starting to come out - these have a wonderful, edible corm (like a tuber) that is a bit nutty in flavor, with a potato like consistency.
These Pasque flowers (or Prairie Crocus) were not open when we walked by them earlier in the day, but had popped and were in display a few hours later.
As well, but not photographed, we saw Early Buttercups, Yellow Bells, Prairie Smoke, and just emerging Arrow Leaf Balsam Root.
Bridger Range alpine high country and the North Cottonwood drainage:
I could not decide which "hiking buddy" to bring, so I brought two (giant piece of fatwood in the background):
Because I love the puzzle of hunting down pitchwood/ fatwood (and this particular area has it in great amounts and in trophy sized specimens)....
A nice rib, still welded to the dead tree that is slowly decaying to reveal it's left behind treasure.
You can see the degree of saturation in the gold exterior (sap being pushed through the wooden structure to appear on the outside of the piece) and dark amber veins.
Brought home 2 specimens....
one of which I had to cut in half to get it to fit safely in the back of the Subaru. Looks like candy and good enough to eat...should burn like mad.
Thanks for reading.
