Six Mile Hills Nature Hike
On a drizzly spring day I drove up the bumpy road into the Six Mile Hills. I first paddled around Pat Lake (twice), then secured the boat. I hiked up to the top of Six Mile Hill on route with no trails, picking a line to hike for each section as I climbed. The south-facing slopes have rocky hills, open ridges, small grassy dales, and grassland slopes to the top, where this is an open douglas fir forest in sheltered areas and on the north slope. From the viewpoint on top of the hill were wide views to the north and east, over Kamloops Lake and all the hills that surround it. On the way back down I took another eclectic route, winding past windfall, around standing trees, finding interesting slopes to hike back down to the lake. Along the way I stopped to observe, birds, insects, trees, shrubs, and wildflowers. Some of them are shared here in galleries of photos. In this gallery are arrow-leaved balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata) , puccoon (lithospermum ruderale), showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) , silverleaf phacelia (Phacelia hastata), field milk-vetch (Astralagus agrestis), tumble-mustard (Sisymbrium altissimum), upland larkspur (Delphinium nuttallianum), hillside arnica (Arnica fulgens), linearleaf phacelia (Phacelia linearis – an annual), and horsebrush (Tetradymia canscens).
Can you identify the flowers? To see a lightbox view and a caption/ID, click an image.
Also shared here are shrubby penstemon (Penstemon fruticosus), linearleaf phacelia, field locoweed (Oxytropis campestris) , woollypod milk-vetch (Astalagus purshii) , gaillardia (Gaillardia aristata), silverleaf phacelia, thread-leaved fleabane (Erigeron filifolius), and western hawksbeard (Crepis occidentalis).
Each month brings new flowering plants to observe, photograph, and share. Posts will be ongoing over the flowering seasons.
Nice photos and information!