Spring on Tumalo Mountain

I last climbed Tumalo Mountain (elev. 7700 feet) in September after it cooled off last year. At the very tail end of the season, it was just the rabbitbrushes in bloom. I wanted to climb it again in the spring just to see what the differences in seasons are. And it has just finally warmed enough for most of the snow to melt, leaving a passable trail. The window to hike it between snowmelt and it becoming ungodly hot on the exposed upper half of the mountain is narrow. And so yesterday, I headed out and up before the temperatures headed for near 100 degrees at week's end.

Last September, I was just regaining some fitness after spending mid-February through early June in a cast following surgery on my broken foot. It was a struggle up the mountain, which gains 1400 feet of elevation in two miles, and maybe even a bigger struggle back down in my less than fit state. I stopped probably once every five minutes on the ascent to catch my wind and towards the end of the descent, I stopped here and there to rest my aching right knee.

This trip up, I climbed for a solid 30 minutes before pausing to take a breather. Including rest breaks, I climbed the two miles in 50 minutes. I am much more fit this year than last for which I am happy and for which I have also worked hard. Given that the snow has just melted (or nearly so), there are very few wildflowers in bloom especially down low below the tree line.

Mt. Bachelor from the Tumalo Mountain Trail

Below 7000 Feet, The Most Common Flower
Alpine False Dandelion, Nothocalais alpestris

Above 7500 Feet, Ubiquitous Patches of
Drummond's Anemone, Anemone drummondii

Drummond's Anemone Foliage

Drummond's Anemone Under Whitebark Pine, Pinus albicaulis

California Jacob's Ladder, Polemonium californicum

Tips of South Sister and Broken Top Emerging Over Snowfield

South Sister Through Whitebark Pines
Drummond's Anemones on Ground

South, Middle, and North Sisters; Broken Top

Middle and North Sisters, Broken Top

Collapsed Crater of Broken Top

South Sister

Mt. Bachelor

On the way down, I took advantage of the clearish day (southern sky is hazy from the Darlene 3 fire in La Pine) to shoot the skyline to help me learn the peaks south of us.

Peaks South of Us (Click Through to Read Labels)

After a quick and uneventful 40-minute trip down to the Dutchman Sno-Park parking lot, I decided to go poke around in Dutchman Flat now that the snow is melted to see what if anything was blooming. After slogging a half a mile through loose sand in the now warming day, I called it quits, the flat barren of any interesting flowers. I was, however, impressed at how high the ski area signs are. I placed a leaf on the post at 6 feet off the ground so that I could estimate how high the pole is. I'm going to guess 15 or 16 feet. That's a lot of snow.

Skiers to the Left, Snowshoers to the Right

I noticed all along the roadside leading up to the parking lot just opposite the entrance to Mt. Bachelor lots of flowers in bloom, including big stands of bright red scarlet gilia and big patches of low-growing purple blooms which I assumed to be penstemons. Along the parking lot, I found out that some of the low-growing patches are penstemons while others are lupines.

Dwarf or Pacific Lupine, Lupinus lepidus

Small-Flower Penstemon, Penstemon procerus

Now that I have done Tumalo this year, I want to go climb Paulina to witness the large bloom of both paintbrushes and mat-forming penstemons at the top. I know from experience that I need to wait a few more weeks for that. At the summit at 8000 feet, 300 feet above Tumalo, the snow is just melting and the plants are just starting to grow.