Mild weather means lots of continued hiking and paddling on trails and routes in the Interior.    Habitats vary from dry lower elevations to high forest areas.   With such widespread drought, many flowering plants turned more quickly to seeding/fruiting and some later-blooming species seemed less robust.    A few plants continued their flowering cycle as usual, weathering the heat and flowering with the late summer temperatures and reduced hours of sunny conditions.

Locations for the nature hikes included a number of locations in the Interior Plateau, Douglas fir, lodgepole pine, spruce, and aspen forests, but also the grasslands areas, and some near subalpine routes.    Some photos were taken along the way, and now shared here in a Google Photos slideshow – rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus), pickleweed (Salicornia rubra), goldenrod (Solidago canadensis), sickletop lousewort (Pedicularis racemosa), bog wintergreen (Pyrola asarifolia), fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium), Cortinarius (fungus), western toad (Anaxyrus boreas), butterbur (Petasites frigidus), blue clematis (Clematis occidentalis), eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis), wire lettuce (Stephanomeria pauciflora), sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale), and curlycup gumweed (Grindelia squarrosa). 

Some of these are featured in posts on this website and more will be published over the fall and winter months.