Get Ready for Wildflowers!

Editors Note: CDLT Mountain Bike Wildflower Rides will be happening on July 7th and 8th, as part of Breck Bike Week. You can learn more at cdlt.org

One last fix at the desert

After a winter of seeing mostly white and gray, it was such a treat to take that first trip to the desert and suddenly see not just green, but pink….red….purple….yellow. Hopefully a few of you still have one more trip to the desert since Moab and Fruita are starting to peak right about now. We had our best flower rides on the Klondike Bluffs ride in Moab and the Loma/Mack Kokopelli zone in Fruita (Photos 1-5). I have never seen so many dense patches of sego lilies as I did outside of Mack, and these were in an odd spot – along the drab frontage road! We actually saw more flowers on that road stretch back to Loma then we did on the actual singletrack.

First Summit County Blooms

Sagebrush flowers are some of my favorites. And yes, Summit County does have a few great zones for these. Check out the Williams Fork Ride (across the highway from Cow Camp Campground). I would say mid-June is when this area peaks. Another great sagebrush flower zone is the lower Ptarmigan Trail where the Balsam flower blooms first. Tenderfoot Road and an out and back on the singletrack is another one. And you gotta hand it to the Summit Cove region for sagebrush color in mid June. Or there is always the short Betty’s Trail and the other neighborhood trails right across the street from my house in French Creek.

End of June and into early July (esp this year!)

Finally the woods are dry and the wildflowers in the woodsy zones go off. Nothing better than the entire Summit Cove/Colorado Trail zone for these blooms. Has anyone else noticed that since the Pine Beetle epidemic, (dead trees not using water) the Arnica is now flourishing? And it’s always worth riding out and back on the Aquaduct Trail for the overdose of Blue Flax.