High Sierra Topix

PM sent

Oh, now I know what "pm" means.

Red Hills (white brodiaea) and Alabama Hills (evening snow) in the spring. Hope Valley for blue camas, waterleaf, bog onion, and Hesperochiron californica, trail from Woods Lake to Winnemucca Lake for all kinds of great flowers in the forest (low polemonium) as well as in the open, the highlands above Caples Lake from trial that starts at the dam, all above South Lake, road from Panther Spr to Salt Cr Res and down to Tiger Cr Res., Lundy Canyon, crest above Virginia Lakes, all the mdws in the Sonora Pass area, Highland Lakes, mdws above Pacific Valley, Horseshoe Mdw, Lundy Pass Loop, Tioga Crest, mdws up trail to Mt. Dana, both Mono Passes, trail to Morgan Pass...

Re: Maverick's insightful comment on the Hwy 140 wildfire. Usually post-fire floral displayes are fabluous, especially for annuals and genuses in (former) Liliaceae (which now has been broken into 9 different families in the updated Jepson). Calochortus (still Liliaceae) and Dichelostemma (now Themidaceae) in particular flourish following a fire.

This is what I feared - going crazy thinking about all the places with great flower shows. And the problem with doing emails - so much escapes the monment you're writing.

Like Maverick said above - one can be somewhere and see a great floral display, and then never see it there again. So hit and miss...

This past April, the trail to Sawmill Pass rocked with flowers. Solid carpet, primarily lupine.

Also, the route to Birch Mtn, outta Big Pine, in early July (?), was solid purple hillsides of lupine. Incredible. Far as you could see.

And the desert peach from Woodfords on down to the Sawmill Pass trailhead earlier in the year was great this year. There were huge patches of it at Sawmill in early April. I didn't even realize it grew there.

Thanks Jdunne for your post, and pm, very enlightening with lots of great information.

I'm still trying to figure out if late June is too early to start from the Crown Valley trailhead to get to Tehipite Valley.

I'm now thinking I might try for a late May trip to Tehipite Valley (like May 20). Might be some snow going over into the Crown basin, but I'm hoping that's all.

Any thoughts by those who are in the know?

I think June would be the best time for Tehipite wildflowers. The roads should be clear in early to mid June. I parked my car at Wishon Reservoir. You are more likely to see the best wildflower displays in the vast meadows on the way to Tehipite Valley. The Valley is a steep V shaped riparian habitat, and has no meadow. The soil is dry and sandy, but there should be a lot of interesting flora. Maybe even some endemic plants.

I believe Tehipite Valley is a steep "U" shaped valley, due to the glaciation.

Yes, definitely U-shaped (V-shaped further upstream, though; maybe that's what vandman had in mind?). But Vandman is right about it not being particularly meadowy; there are broad sandy sparsely-vegetated flats in the Valley. There is at least one endemic species, Streptanthus fenestratus (Tehipite Valley Jewelflower).

The one species I can guarantee you'll see is Toxicodendron diversilobium.


Edit: here's a (not necessarily comprehensive0 species list from the CalFlora database.