A Weekend Among the Clouds - 6/17 to 6/19/11

[mtruman]

We were lucky enough to get to spend three days at Lakes of the Clouds hut last weekend. The freeze a couple of weeks ago may have toned down the alpine flower display somewhat but they are still just spectacular. We were blessed with great weather, beautiful views, awesome hiking and best of all I got to spend Father's Day (and the rest of the weekend) in the mountains with my wonderful wife and daughter. It just doesn't get any better than that. Here's my probably-way-too-long blog post which contains likely-way-too-many pictures. For the real gluttons for mountain photography punishment there's a link to the whole 250+ picture album (whittled down from the 700+ that Jamie and I managed to take between us). Hope you enjoy it.

The blog post is here: http://theramblingsblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/weekend-among-clouds.html

And a little sample...

 

[Kevin Judy and Emma]

Great sampler!

Will check the rest tomorrow!

KDT

 

[Fisher Cat]

Those are great shots Mark! What a wonderful time! I believe the picture you lissted as being ID"d by the Flower Society is the Moss Plant- cassiope hyponides. I'm pretty sure the other one you mentioned looking for ID help is a Fir Clubmoss amidst bilberry, I just couldn't tell if it was Bog or Dwarf bilberry from the shot.

Great job!

 

[TrishandAlex]

Wonderful report and fantastic photos. Glad you had a great Father's Day!

 

[mtruman]

Thanks everyone!

Scott - appreciate the ID's. I think you're spot on with both. I'm sure that what the flower society person said to us was cassiope but we didn't quite hear it right.

Kevin - thanks for correcting my ID of the Three Toothed Cinquefoil and noting that it's actually Goldthread. The flower looked close (but not perfect) and I knew that the plant looked wrong.

I've updated the descriptions on the pics and in the blog. Someday I hope to spend enough time among these plants that I'll know all their names by heart...

 

[1HappyHiker]

Oh my! What a trip, Mark! Beautiful scenery, and all captured brilliantly with your fantastic photos!
And, it's terrific that you were able to come across such a wide variety of wildflowers.

 

[mtruman]

Oh my! What a trip, Mark! Beautiful scenery, and all captured brilliantly with your fantastic photos!
And, it's terrific that you were able to come across such a wide variety of wildflowers.

Thanks John. I've got you (and Kevin) to thank for at least part of it in getting us to try the Camel Trail. One of the nicest segments in an overall amazing day!

 

[sierra]

Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your photos, the extensive amount of flower photos and thier quality was simply amazing. I even got sideracked on your blog and enjoyed the san fran photos as well, as I lived there for awhile a few years back. Quite enjoyable thanks.

 

[Jimmy Legs and Little D]

Mark,
Outstanding! I wanted to wait to reply after I had viewed your entire slideshow, the glutton that I am You, Natalie and Jamie are so fortunate to have been able to experience the alpine garden. So many beautiful pictures of the views, flowers, etc. It must have been difficult to whittle down 700 photos into the 250 photo slideshow. That was a tremendous amount of photos for 2 days! (And I thought we took a lot on our trip to SC last month; but that was 700 for an entire week). The photos of the alpine gardens and flowers reminded me of our hike years ago in California when we were hiking to "The Buttes" in the Sierras. I had never seen so many beautiful flowers along the trail. It was an inspiring event that I will never forget.
Thanks for taking us on a tour of the alpine garden.

Donna

 

[PETCH]

Sounds like a great time. Great report, and fantastic pics! You've really captured the plant life up there.

Petch

 

[DAYHIKER]

Thanks for the great pictures

I was up the Jewell trail Sunday with my son and his family. Believe we passed you while you were feeding the babies. Glad to see some pictures of the day. Did not have a camera with me.

 

[mtruman]

sierra, Donna, Petch, Dayhiker - thanks for the nice comments.

sierra - glad you enjoyed the San Fran pics too. It's definitely our favorite city and I wish we could get there more often. The trip last summer with 1/2 Yosemite and 1/2 SF was just about the perfect vacation. First time our daughter (15 then) had been out and within the first day in the city she had declared that it was where she wanted to live

Donna - glad you were able to make it through the whole slide show without passing out. The photo "sifting" from this kind of trip is a bit different since I tend to take many more shots of a single subject (flowers) to be sure I get a good one. Makes it easier to eliminate more but doesn't take any less time going through the collection. Always fun though. Having experienced just that one day of "wildflower madness" in Hetch Hetchy last summer I know what you mean about the CA wildflowers. Definitely need to spend more time hiking out west in the coming years (in our copious free time of course)

Petch - glad you enjoyed the story and pics. It's so nice having an extended time among the flowers and scenery on a trip like this and being able capture them.

Dayhiker - it was nice meeting you and the family on the trail Sunday. Hope you had a great hike. Happy to be able to provide some pictures of your views too