Cowiche Canyon Preserve, Snow Mountain Ranch and Cowiche Mountain & Rocky Top and Cowiche Mountain — Saturday, Apr. 9, 2022

I took a mid-day walk on the Cowiche Canyon Uplands from Summitview on Wed.  We seem to be between blooms and there were not many wildflowers.  The day was sunny and cool.  Then yesterday I went out to Snow Mtn Ranch in the afternoon.  I walked across the bottomlands past the field where they had the controlled burn on Sun.  Already there were green shoots at the bases of the brunt Basin Wildrye.  I was going to go up the Wildflower Trail, but the wind was so strong I took the Cowiche Mtn Trail West up the ravine instead.  The Butterfly Bearing Desert Parsley (formerly known as Gray's Desert Parsley) was profuse in the ravine.  By the time I climbed out of the ravine to the junction with the Wildflower trail the wind had settled down a little so I went down that trail.  There were not a lot of flowers at the top of the Wildflower Trail, but there was some nice balsamroot lower down.  And finally, this afternoon I went out to Rocky Top.  I walked up Walk and Roll and down Green Harvester and Wholly Moses.  Once again there weren't a lot of flowers - mostly Hooker's Balsamroot and Cushion Phlox.  With all the cool weather forecast for the next week, it could be a couple of weeks before the wildflowers are good again over here.