Wildflower Extravaganza

Our long bus ride and late return to camp led us to take it easy Thursday.  Overdoing it and getting too tired is what causes my back to be unhappy, so I didn’t want to take any chances with that happening again.  We did a couple household chores this morning, but mainly sat around sipping coffee, reading, and engaging our feeble minds with sudoku.

Rose Avens

Arctic Cotton grass

This afternoon, we walked up the road about a mile and a half and back again, looking for and photographing the wildflowers.  This seems to be peak season for the early flowers and they are in abundance everywhere.

Pink Plumes

Bear flower

We try to learn the flowers and are pretty good with the most common eastern flowers, but we’re pretty pitiful with everything else.  We don’t have the proper wildflower guide book for this region, but Gene has searched in the western flower book we have to find some of what we are seeing here.  I’ve labeled the photo, if we have anywhere near a clue as to what the flower is.

Arctic sandwort

This evening (Thursday), we went to the amphitheater for another Ranger program.  This time we learned all about the dogs and the cats in the park.  The wolf was the primary focus in the dog category and the lynx held the cat position.  Different Ranger this time and he did okay.  He was a very young man and this was the first night he tried to do his presentation without notes.  He was very knowledgeable and the topic is fascinating to many people, so I think when he feels more comfortable with his presentation it’ll be a good one.  There wasn’t a skit, so we didn’t get to dazzle everyone with our inability to act.  We learned that a lynx has been spotted within the past couple days along the road where we went for our walk.

Large flowered wintergreen

I haven’t mentioned Mt McKinley--”the mountain”.  It is, after all, a prominent feature of this park.  I haven’t mentioned it because we haven’t yet seen it.  It has kept itself hidden behind cloud cover since we’ve been here.  We’re hopeful we’ll get to see it before we leave.

Cinquefoil

Enjoy the wildflower photos.  I’ll name the ones I can.

Mountain avens

NOTE:  Since writing this we have purchased a wildflower book for this region.  Hopefully, those flowers named are correct.

Thanks for tagging along.