Flowers along the Rainbow Lake trail

— The scenery by itself was breathtaking as we hiked to Rainbow Lake in Colorado. Every stretch of the trail provided a new view of the skies, mountains, and streams. Just looking along the trail itself, beauty was everywhere. July is a prime month in Colorado when several wildflowers bloom everywhere. Here are some examples of what caught my eye in this short hike (1.5 miles or 2.4 km).

At the very start of the trail, the first flowers we saw were the common dandelion. What was striking about this is the sheer number of those flowers along the trail. The two most common types of dandelions, according to Wikipedia, came to North America from Europe. They now grow in the USA as wildflowers.

After passing several patches with dandelions, we saw one particular wildflower that is very common in Texas: Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja Coccinea). This particular variant was the Castilleja occidentalis. Montana’s official website says this flower is common in the vicinity of Glacier National Park, but it can also be found in Colorado and New Mexico. The photo you see here is only before the flowers were in full bloom. The main flower color is yellow, but some hybrids can go from white to purple.

Another very common flower we saw along the Rainbow Lake trail (and just about all other trails in Colorado) was Woods’ rose or mountain rose. This native North American plant is a deciduous shrub. You can easily spot these along the trails because of their bright pink color. The rose itself has five petals.

However, no other flower is more easily found on all trails we hiked than Colorado’s official state flower, the Colorado Blue Columbine (the first flower featured in this post). Although I did see other Columbine varieties, the Blue Columbine is striking in every way you look at it. According to Wikipedia, Aquilegia coerulea (Colorado Blue Columbine) is a species of “the buttercup family Ranunculaceae, native to the Rocky Mountains, USA.” It was declared Colorado’s state flower on April 4, 1899. Instead of trying to describe the beauty of this flower, I will simply post several photos here showing various angles of the flower as well as its bud before the flower is fully open. You can click on each thumbnail to see the full image.