Playing catch up after healing

An early and large Bitterroot bloom in the Scratchgravel Hills near Helena

 

Lady Slipper orchids in Waterton

The biggest bloom of lupine I'd ever seen on the Waterton flats

Crandell Lake in Waterton

Early blooms of Beargrass in a number of areas.  These in Waterton

The best of the waterfalls on our Waterton hike

Okay, I haven't posted for a month, but that doesn't mean I haven't been getting out.

Just the opposite.

I've used that time to get in a lot of hikes and do some final fix-ups on health issues.

Perhaps the most significant fix-up was having my cataracts removed.

That meant having to back off many of the more strenuous hikes I would have liked to do.

But now I see significantly more clearly.  Colors, in particular, pop.  

The flowers during the past month have been ahead of schedule and prolific.  The snow melted off the mountains earlier than usual and copious rain has greened up the hillsides.

I found chocolate lilies two weeks ahead of schedule.  Ditto for our state flower, the Bitterroot.  The high points on both sides of Rogers Pass were spangled with alpine flowers I usually expect around Father's Day.  The fragrant, blue Forget-Me-Not, was the best I've seen in more than 40 years of visiting the Rogers Pass area.  Beargrass also got an early start.  

Wandering the Waterton roadside

We also got in trips to the Placid Lake high trail in the Seeley area for an Arrow Leaf show and Camas, the Scratchgravel Hills, several trips to Mount Helena, the Pioneer Ridge Loop, the Sluice Boxes, Crawford Creek, and  Kings Hills (early Jones Columbine) in the Little Belts, and a climb of Windy Point peak in the Highwoods.

My favorite trip during this past month was three days at Waterton National Park in southern Alberta.  The highlight was a 7-mile walk from the Crandall Lake trailhead back to the Waterton townsite.  It included a side trip Crandall Lake.  The hike roughly parallels the road that goes to Cameron Lake and the Akamina trailhead.  We passed several powerful waterfalls along the way, and were treated to a multitude of wildflowers, with the Lady Slipper orchid being the most outstanding one encountered.  We saw one black bear on this trip. The day before we also walked along the Cameron Lake shoreline to near the U.S. border.  On the Waterton flats near the Red Rocks turnoff we found the largest display of blue lupine I've ever seen.

It appears as though there is pretty good snowpack in the high country, but the Great Plains are super dry. We benefited some with a pretty good soaking rainfall before and after our Waterton trip.

I'm ready to go!  

My surgically repaired foot handled all the hiking quite well, and combined with my repaired eyesight, I'm ready for the hiking and climbing season to begin in earnest.