How to find (and protect) wildflowers on your spring hikes

Posted by Loren Drummond at May 06, 2024 03:30 PM | Permalink

Filed under: Hike Planning, Trail Smarts

Tap the incredible community of trip reporters to follow the bloom across Washington. Plus, get tips on how to get stunning photographs of flowers, without ever stepping foot off trail.

Two contradictory things to love about wildflower season in Washington: it's both fleeting and it lasts forever.

From bold skunk cabbage (aka bear laxatives!) to the delicate trillium, our wide variety of wildflowers delight and surprise after a long winter. They seem to spring out of the earth overnight, painting familiar places in new shades of ephemeral beauty. Blink, and you might miss them.

The good news is that wildflower season also lasts forever in Washington. Flowers appear in late winter in the low country and climb across the state and up into mountain alpine meadows along with us well into August. During that time, it's up to all of us to share and protect the fragile flora across the state.

Trip reporter CJ Silvey enjoyed snow-dusted vistas and balsamroot hillsides on a recent backpacking trip along Chelan Lakeshore.

So, how do you know where to seek out the wonders of wildflowers? Turn to each other and trip reports to research your next hike or just enjoy watching the bloom unfold vicariously. Then get our tips for getting great photos without stepping off trail.

Seek out wildflowers by searching trip reports

When you're planning a hike, you may in the habit of checking recent trip reports for a specific hike for a sense of road and trail conditions. But there is also a cool way to search all trip reports. And there a few tricks to find the bleeding heart edge of wildflowers.

Use the wildflower filter when searching trip reports on the website or on our mobile app.

Wildflowers blooming filter

Looking for where you might be the first person to spot wildflowers on trail? Go back a year or two. Search trip reports with wildflowers from all previous years in the month of April.

Trip report search filter by month

The bloom belongs to everyone! 5 tips to enjoy and protect wildflowers

Learn! Grab a guidebook, like Best Wildflower Hikes: Washington. Or check out our full-color guide to 50 common mountain wildflower species in the Cascades and Olympics.
Leave the flowers there for others to enjoy. It's not cool to pick wildflowers on public lands.
Stay on trail. Shoes and boots can do a lot of damage to delicate plant life in meadows and on hillsides.
Wildflower season is also tick season. Ugh. Take tick prevention measures, and know how to remove them safely.
Post a trip report. If you use trip reports to find your next flower hike, share the love by posting a short one of your own.

How to take stunning wildflower photos without leaving the trail

Go early. Early birds on trail will not only have the best light, but you'll also have a clearer field of vision from the most convenient spot.
Play with angles. Set one or two blooms off center in the frame or squat, kneel or lay down low to get a different take on your scene.
Hide the trail. We love a good trailscape here at WTA, but if you are trying to take a shot without the trail in it, Mount Rainier National Park (still under snow at the moment) has a few cool tricks you can use to photograph landscapes or people that look like they are in a sea of flowers.
- On a slope, take your shot from below at an uphill spot where the trail or the feet of your subject are hidden by the flowers.
- Use strategic trail curves or switchbacks to mask the ribbon of trail and give the appearance of a person surrounded by wildflowers.
Pull back the curtain in your caption. If you do manage a perspective trick to remove the appearance of a trail from your wildflower shots, be clear in your captions that you and the subject are both on trail. It sets a great example for others to follow and saves someone wondering if any wildflowers were harmed in the making of your photo. :)
Resist the temptation. And remember, if you're tempted to tiptoe into a meadow to snag that one shot, imagine what would happen if everyone on trail that week followed your example. Let the shot go and drink in the experience that drew you there in the first place.