The Search for a Wild Iris

 We had arrived to Colorado but our house still had a good 6 weeks of construction before we could move in. This coupled with the slow season at Daddy's work made for some much needed climbing trips. Lander, WY is a wonderful place to climb early summer. We arrived just after the snow melted and the flowers began to bloom. I don't know what the perfect conditions were, but the flowers were tremendous!

We told the boys that we were in search of a real Wild Iris. They were used to climbing at Wild Iris but to see a real one in the wild was a little trickier to find. The search was on! Climbing days were really just climbing morning which left a lot of free time to go search and explore the country side. We did have real rest days at the Bechtel's so Axel and Sam had plenty of superhero time too.

Meadows filled with Lupine.

 Up at higher elevations, these beautiful magenta colored "shooting star" flowers were the first to pop up. They blanketed the hillside and we fell in love with them.

 

Axel smelling all the flowers.

 Daddy spent some time at Wolf Point with some of the locals. It's a hike for sure, down one side of the canyon and up the other. Needless-to-say, the boys and I only made it out there one time. It was worth the trek and we were very impressed by the little hikers we have in our family!!

Hiking down to the river.

There's the cave...looks pretty small from across the canyon.

 After meeting a baby rattlesnake on the trail, we made it to Wolf Point. The cave in enormous and we were happy to arrive without any other snake sightings. Those things make me a little nervous!!

 

Yep, it's a big cave!!!

 

 

Axel and Sam had a wonderful time together. Lucas could only handle so much younger kid time and he was thrilled to have a good book to read.

 Hiking to the crag made us realize just how much we love the outdoors. The cliffs, the flowers, the mountain background, the clouds...we really were out of Florida!!

Daddy trying out some new Trango Tarifa shoes!

I'm excited to try out mine!!

The weather was unpredictable. Sunny one minute and storming the next.

For the most part, the mornings were good for climbing. When skies turned gray, we ran for the car!

 During our climbing and hiking adventures, we did come across some real Wild Iris' and the boys were pretty excited. Good thing, Mom & Dad went through great lengths to find them. As the summer progressed, they became less and less scarce. Beautiful for sure!!

One morning we headed up to climb and this is what the weather looked like. We decided it was a bit too humid, rainy and cold to head to the crag. Instead, we enjoyed the roadside flowers and headed back home to wait for better conditions.

Looked like winter!

Shooting Stars!

 

After the Shooting Stars ran their course, these yellow flowers dominated the hillsides. It looked like someone tossed hundreds of yellow paint cans all over the hills surrounding Lander.

 

 

Little Blue Bells.

 





 We did get a few photos of the yellow explosion but not at the peak. Imagine this times 20 all over the hills! Truly amazing!!

 

 

 



The purples were really strong in some places too.

 

A family of Antelopes you can barely see in the center of the photo.

 

It felt like every climbing day was a bit more colorful as flowers came to bloom and died out. A new type and color always surprised us and it was such a treat! We were so happy to be home...in the mountains and able to enjoy all this wonderful color!!!