By the time October arrives most of the flowering herbs of the area have withered and died back.   the late bloomers will still be above ground and the early bloomers will mostly be out of sight.   By mid-October in the lower valley rabbitbrush has stopped blooming and only a few weedy plants are still in flower.   Yellow toadflax (linaria vulgaris) is an invasive that we would rather not have, but the individual flowers are delicate.

Toadflax flowers resemble snapdragons, but the plant is an invasive in B.C.    A single plant can produce over 30 000 seeds.

Along the rock outcrops and rocky cliffs are a number of lichens, including this xanthoria (yellow crustose lichen).

Multiple lichens cover some of the rock faces, highlighted by these orange crustose lichens.

A few younger ponderosa pines have begun to replace the older bug-killed trees that now stand as dark snags on the hillside.

Sagebrush, rabbitbrush, junipers, lichens, mosses, and bunchgrasses covered the hillside and only a few linaria stood out in the dampened hues of the grasslands.