The Best Worst Race – High Uintas Classic 2009

Note: This post is a pure race report. Excepting the first-hand account of stage 1 hypothermia, there’s no science in this post. There are also no photos- for reasons that will be obvious- and- except for maps and elevation chart- no graphics, simply due to time and a desire to get the story down while still fresh in my mind. (And frankly, the story isn’t that funny or “light.”) If bike racing’s not your thing, this might be a good one to skip. But you’re a racer or a cyclist with an interest in racing, I’ve got a hell of a story.

Background

As frequent readers know, I hate the rain. Know what I hate more than rain? Biking in the rain. Know what I hate even more than biking in the rain? Racing in the rain. Racing down a slick road at 30-50MPH on a skinny-tired bicycle while soaked through to the skin, blinded by rain-fogged glasses, shivering uncontrollably and jostling for position in a race-pack has got to be the most miserable cycling experience imaginable.

This is my 3^rd year racing, and so far I’ve been lucky. I’ve never crashed, mechanical’d, or even flatted yet in a race. And notwithstanding a few light spotty showers, I’ve never had to race in the rain. So here’s a post about an 79 mile race, 60 miles of which I raced in the pouring, steady, uninterrupted rain.

All About The High Uintas Classic

My favorite road race is the High Uintas Classic. Starting in Kamas, UT and finishing 79 miles later in Evanston, WY, it follows the Mirror Lake Highway up over 10,700 feet over Bald Mountain Pass, then through a series of rolling, forested ~10K minor summits, then down, down, down, down into Wyoming and onto the wide open, windy high plains for the final 35 miles to the finish. The race has everything: the toughest, most brutal, sustained, high-altitude climb around, outstanding scenery, thrilling 50 MPH+ descents, and tough windy flats that make strategy and teamwork crucial. In 2007 I raced it for the first time (as a Cat5.) On the killer climb, at around 10,000 feet, I remember thinking, “Oh my god. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” But I made it up, regrouped with a few other racers who’d been similarly dropped from the lead pack, and finished a respectable 8^th.

In 2008 I raced it again, my first race as a Cat4. On the killer climb, right around 10,000 feet, I thought, “Oh my god. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Then I immediately though, “Wait a minute. That’s exactly what I thought right here last year! How did I forget this race was so awful?” I crested Bald Mountain in the 2^nd pack, about 12-14 strong, and together we chased a lead breakaway pack of 5. Over the next 45 miles we caught them one by one, picking off the last soloist a mere 5 miles from the finish. I finished- again – 8^th.

This year I signed up for High Uintas again, because although it is a tough, agonizing race, it’s also arguably the best race around. And I figured that after 2 prior years, I knew what I was getting into. I wanted to do well, not only because Awesome Wife and the Trifecta would be at the finish line*, but because I’d been doing some math lately, and though I wasn’t (and am still not) sure, my rough figures told me that if I finished 5^th place or better, I’d have enough points for a Cat3 upgrade.

*We kill 2 birds with one stone. Awesome Wife makes a stop at one of the discount Wyoming liquor stores. If you’re a drinker living in Utah, you get this.

As popular as this race is with climbers, it is wildly unpopular with racers who dislike climbing, and as such I had just 2 Cat4 teammates racing with me, only one of whom- let’s call him “Will”- climbs at around my level. The starting pack included larger contingents from several other teams, including Cole Sport, SkiUtah and Skull Candy (probably the best organized Cat4 team in Utah this year) and Will and I started out feeling a bit apprehensive and ”out-gunned.”

The forecast called for afternoon showers, and with a start time of 10:40, I was optimistic that we could maybe zip through a quick shower or 2 without getting drenched. I wore a jersey, shorts, wind-vest and arm warmers. At the last minute I switched to wool socks.

The first hour of High Uintas involves a series of rolling gentle climbs in a large pack. This part involves repeated early attacks, and the challenge here is to stay with the lead pack while expending the minimum possible effort. For Will and me, working largely solo, this meant careful jockeying and maneuvering to try and stay about 1/3 of the way back. During this time, we were sprinkled with intermittent rainshowers, but our feet, hands and bodies remained largely dry. As we approached the “real climb” we worked our way up closer to the front, and I was warm enough to push down my arm warmers.

At close to 9,000 feet and mile 23 the “real” climb began, and the slow agony of gradual pack break-up ensued. We soon were down to a smaller group of about 15, at which point the rain kicked in- strong, hard and steady. “Well,” I thought, “it’s just another shower; it’ll probably break after the summit…”

At mile 26 or so we fractured again to a lead group of 5, climbing in a cold, steady rain. At this point I felt the wetness soak through to my fingers and feet. But soon we were 4. The leader, “Tyler” of the Skull Candy team- whom I shall henceforth refer to as “Tyler1”- was off the front, climbing solo like a bat out of hell. None of the rest of us climb-leaders could hold the pace. About a ½ mile from the summit, we started to break-up again; a Cole Sport rider and Will were starting to gap me. But I held barely till the summit and stood up to catch them up top. I looked back. The last of the climb-leaders, a Team Wright rider- whom I shall refer to as Tyler2 (since we shall see him again) had fallen way off, at least a couple hundred meters.

Tangent: I don’t know what Tyler1 was thinking. I’ve raced with him several times*, and he’s a great, smart racer. But soloing to the top of Bald Mountain by any more than a 20M lead (for the KOM* time bonus) is pointless. It’s 50+ miles from Bald Mountain to Evanston- an impossible distance to solo against any kind of motivated chase group.

*Tyler1, Cole Sport and I duked it out toward the finish at East Canyon back in April, which I covered in this post.

**King of the Mountain. A minor time bonus is awarded to the first racer in each category to summit.

That left 3 of us- Cole Sport, Will and me. The rain was now a steady downpour, with no sign of a break ahead, and with 4-6 foot snow banks lining the road, we were facing a fast, long descent ahead with multiple switchbacks. We quickly conferred and reached one of those mid-race “pacts”: we’d keep the speed down through the switchbacks ahead, and then try to work together to catch Tyler1 and maintain our break from the rest of the pack.

Status Check: Plan vs. Execution

At this point, I’d have given Will and me about a “B” for execution. Our original plan was to stick with the lead pack to the top, chasing any break of 5 or more racers. The key to this race is to wind up at the summit as part of a lead pack of 6-8 racers: any more and it’s to hard to sprint-place at the finish; any fewer and you’re likely to get caught by a larger chase group down on the high plains below. We were 3, though optimistic of catching Tyler1 and making 4. Less than optimal, but still possible.

Descent of Terror #1

The descent was immediately terrifying. The rain was falling fast and hard enough that up to ¼” of water was on the road. The rainfall was blinding, and we were soon soaked through to the skin. Will was the first to complain of finger numbness; I looked over and saw he’d gone with fingerless gloves- a mistake, to be sure. Cole Sport encouraged him with finger-twirling exercises. And our brakes were reduced to maybe a 1/3 of their normal stopping power. Each switchback, even at our slower speed, was another nerve-wracking round of Roulette Of Compromised Friction- slick skinny tires lean-angled on water-covered pavement, glazed break- pads pressing against soaked aluminum rims.

The first descent ended, but we were still rolling along at 20-25 MPH in a driving rain at 45F. Suddenly, Tyler2 was back. To think of the pace he solo’d that descent to catch us filled me with both shock and respect; this guy was driven.

We’d picked up water bottles from the hand-ups at the 1^st feed zone, but at the second feed we blew by without slowing. All of us were too cold to drink much. Shortly after, we caught Tyler1, and he jumped in with us. We were now 5, but we were in trouble. Right as we approached the 2^nd summit, at 10,400 ft, both Will and I noticed we could barely shift. Will complained of tingling, but my feeling was stranger: my hands weren’t “cold”, but they were sluggish, almost partially paralyzed. Changing hand-positions on the bars, shifting or braking required slow, intense concentration, and were accomplished as if in slow motion. I began to worry.

Descent of Terror #2

After the final summit, the course follows a long, fast descent over several miles down onto the rolling plains. Usually this is my favorite part of the course, ripping past open, sunny, Lodgepole Pine forests. Saturday it was sheer hell. As we descended the rain intensified. I led the descent, pushing the pace, as much out of desire to lose elevation as to maintain our lead. And as we descended, and our speed built up to 45MPH (no shit- you simply cannot believe what a crazy, heinous, terrifying descent this was) I began to shiver, and shiver hard.

Right about here, I thought, “This is it- the Worst Race Ever. If I can just get down off of this mountain, I’ll be OK…”

All About Thermoregulation

Way back last September, I did a post explaining the 2 different forms of thermogenesis in the human body. In that post, I explained that shivering is a “bridge” to non-shivering thermogenesis. Shivering brings the body temperature back up rapidly, at which point non-shivering thermogenesis- powered by brown fat cells- takes over keeping the body warm. Or it doesn’t, and the body descends into stage 2 hypothermia. (I won’t repeat the science here; check out that post if you’re interested.)

Back To The Race

I knew all this as I descended, and I hoped like hell that my shivering would be a “bridge” and not a “plank”, but without quitting, all I could do was hope. At this point my body temperature was probably 96F – 97F, and my shivering quickly becoming uncontrollable. My entire upper body was flexed tight in an attempt to maintain a straight line at 45MPH in the rain. Several times I thought I would lose the line and slide out- it was that bad.

Side note: I wondered at the time if my pack-mates could see me shivering. After the race, without prompting from me, Will remarked how violently I’d been shivering on the descent.

For 10-15 minutes I maintained my death-grip on the bars; if I’d had to shift or brake suddenly, I’m not sure I would’ve pulled it off. In the middle of this, another racer shot past - not one of us- but another Cat4, one we’d left far behind on the climb up Bald Mountain. For a moment I feared he was part of a chase group, but apparently he was alone. He rode like a demon, hammering the descent at a rate none of the rest of us had the courage or power to keep up with. He pulled ahead, and disappeared into the gray rain-haze in the distance.

The white-knuckle descent continued for what seemed like forever. But after a time, like slowly waking from a long dream, 3 thoughts entered my head: First, the forest was thinning and the descent leveling off. Second, I wasn’t cold anymore. I wasn’t warm, but I wasn’t shivering. I had “bridged.” And third, bizarrely, inexplicably, I felt strong. Very strong. I kicked it in and my pack-mates fell in behind.

Side Note: Full hand coordination never returned until after the race. When I pulled out a gel flask for a shot of goo at around mile 60, I had to chuck it, unable to work it back into the jersey pocket…

I pulled for probably close to 20 minutes, like a man possessed. When it finally occurred to me that I should back off and get a rotation going, I sat up and looked around. Cole Sport was gone; it was 4 of us- me, Will, Tyler1 and Tyler2.

We rotated in a loose double pace-line for maybe the next 40(?) minutes. Our rotations were wide and sloppy, as we avoided each other’s rooster-tails of rainwater, and none of us were sure of our brakes. Usually double pace-lines hold tight and close to the shoulder, but today, in a reckless, half-crazed combination of desperation, determination and bravado, the 4 of us used the whole lane. After a time I noticed Tyler1 was letting a gap open in his rotations, and then he stopped rotating altogether. I fell back next to him. “Tyler, how you doing man?” I asked. “I’m so cold…” he said with a terrible desperation. “Hang in there brother, just hang with us, we’ll get you to the finish!” I yelled. Tyler1 is a competitor, a tough competitor who’s beat me multiple times, but he’s a good guy, and if I were in his SIDIs I’d hate to be shivering, pedaling alone the last 20 miles.

Tangent: During a race, racers often address each other as “brother.” I don’t know why this is, or if it’s only a Utah thing, but you only do it late in the race, after the pack has thinned and you’re working with a few other racers. My first year in racing I resisted using the appellation*, but now do so fairly often, primarily with teammates, but often with a non-teammate-pack-mate in the latter half of a long race as well. And certainly, late in a long, tough race, there is a certain measure of respect, and even “brotherhood”, between near-equals in a tough contest.

*In fact I used to be a bit testy about it. I was like: “I already have a ‘brother’, his name is “Phil”, and he lives in New York…” (or California, or Massachusetts, or wherever the hell Phil was living at the time…)

But as the remaining 3 of us resumed rotation, he hung for another few minutes, and then fell off, another one gone in the haze of mist and water. It was down to 3 of us, with 20 miles to go. But we were riding strong, and with only the 1 breakaway ahead, Will and I had a strong chance of finishing in the top 4. We worked hard together, and the miles rolled by. Every time I looked down at my computer, several more had passed: 58, 64, 68… At around 10 miles from the finish, Will started to gap on his rotations. I pulled alongside:

Me: “Will, you OK? You hanging in?”

Will: “I’m hurting…”

Me: “Sit out and hang on the back. I’ll work it with the Team Wright guy.”

I pulled back alongside Tyler2. I told him my teammate needed to recover, and we needed to take turns pulling for a while. This was a tricky negotiation. If he said forget it and went for it, I’d either have to hang back with Will and hope he’d recover enough for a chase, or abandon him 10 miles before the finish. To my relief, Tyler2 nodded, and we went to work.

With about 6-7 miles to go, Will jumped back into rotation. On a slight incline, we passed a loose, strung-out series of stragglers from earlier packs riding solo in the shoulder. As I pulled alongside one, I heard Will behind me call out, “Take him, Alex!” Belatedly I realized the straggler was the Cat4 breakaway, the last man between us and the lead. Already standing on the pedals*, I opened it up and blew past, Tyler2 and Will hanging on. For the next ½ mile, the breakaway kept trying to hang onto us. I pulled alongside Tyler2: “Work with me, brother- we need to drop him- but not my teammate…” Tyler2 nodded, and we notched it up just enough to drop the breakaway on the next roller, while keeping Will on our wheel.

*Whenever I stood on the pedals, my feet squished in my water-logged socks…

The 3 of us hung together till about 2 miles till the finish. Finally Will dropped off, and here, at the end, still pouring rain, it was me and Tyler2. We turned to face each other. I called: “Work together to the cones, brother, then we ‘ll gun it out for 1^st and 2^nd!” One last time, Tyler2 nodded.

At the 1K sign, the course narrowed to a single lane lined with orange cones. Tyler2 and I passed each other repeatedly, first rotating, then each trying to shake the other. Finally at the 200M sign, Tyler2 poured it on, in a sprint I couldn’t match. He pulled away. But I grabbed his slipstream and gave all I had to hold his wheel. I stuck. I closed in, preparing to pass yet again. If I could just hold for a few more seconds, he just might fade, and I could… But then out of nowhere, racing up out of the gray blur of rain, pavement and fog, was a line of blue tape across the wet road, and too late I realized just how fast 200 meters gets eaten up in a 30MPH sprint. Tyler2 took it by a bike-length.

Will pulled up seconds later. We’d finished, we’d made it and we’d taken 2^nd and 3^rd. Together with Tyler2, we laughed and high-fived and back-slapped each other with the giddy high that comes out of pulling something really great out of a terrible day.

Will, Tyler2 and I all managed to “bridge”. Our non-shivering, brown-fat thermoregulation mechanisms, evolved over hundreds of thousands of years of wandering, foraging and chasing game on the fringes of retreating and advancing ice sheets did their job. Over thousands of generations, untold countless hominids had shivered, fallen and died in the African highlands and on freezing steppes across Eurasia. Each generation, those who didn’t succumb, and who managed to reproduce, passed their thermoregulation genes on to their offspring. Saturday we, their distant descendants, and the recipients of their trials, suffering and ancient genetic legacy, evaded hypothermia and made it to the finish. But most of our fellow racers weren’t so fortunate. DNF*s ranged around 50% in virtually all categories, and out of 45 Cat4 racers who started in Kamas, a sobering 26 DNF*’d. It was the Best Worst Race.

*Race lingo: Did Not Finish. Dozens were taken off the mountain in ambulances and support vehicles.

Light Week: Solstice, My Dentist, Pizza And Stoners

Almost 6 months ago to the day, I did a post called “Dark Week”, where I talked about the Winter Solstice, hours of daylight and sun angles. (A couple days later I followed up with a post explaining changes in azimuth between the solstices.) In that post, I suggested marking your calendar for this Saturday or Sunday to check out one or more aspects of the Solstice- the length of the day, the sun angle at noon, and/or the azimuth at sunrise/sunset.

Note: Yes, I recycled some of the graphics from that post for this post. Hey, I spent enough time doing them, I can damn well re-use them if I want…

It seems remarkable that 6 months flew by so fast. Each winter when you think about the coming year, you always think about all the time you’ll have and all the things you’ll do, and then before you know it, the time’s gone by and you’re setting your sights on the next year, and all the things you’re sure to get done then…

All About My Dentist

Tangent: The passage of time is foremost on my mind right now because yesterday I went to the dentist. I’ve been seeing the same dentist twice a year for nearly a decade. (pic right = actual photo of my dentist’s office, from his website. I think the lady in the photo is a model; I’ve never seen her, and the usual receptionist is about 40 years older…) Because I see my dentist only at long intervals, we have a weird relationship. We’ve spent maybe 6 or 7 hours together total, but it’s been spread out over a decade. Our relationship is kind of like one of those science fiction stories where people meet again after years-long interstellar journeys where, due to the effects of time-dilation at near-lightspeed travel, only a short time has passed for the travelers, but back on Earth everything’s different. Over the course of our basically single, 6-hour conversation, I’ve changed jobs once, presidents twice, had 3 children, and broken and mended my back.

Nested Tangent: Since I am going to pick on my dentist in a just a moment, I should say that both he and his hygienist are outstanding. This guy gives a novocain shot so smoothly you would not believe it. If you’re local and looking for a dentist in the Salt Lake Valley, let me know. He and his staff provide outstanding, high-quality service.

All About Pizza And Stoners

Speaking of customer service, this is a good opening for me to talk about something else that’s top of mind for me right now: Legalization of Drugs.

As you no doubt are aware, the whole issue of the “War on Drugs” and possible legalization of drugs is a big topic in the US right now. And for many years there have been a number of people who have proclaimed the War on Drugs a failure, having led to record incarceration rates and the creation of violent cartels, while failing to effectively curb drug addiction and dependency.

Now I should say that on the whole I am at least moderately sympathetic to these arguments. As long-time readers can probably ascertain, I tend towards liberal end of the political spectrum, usually vote for Democrats, and am supportive of things like wilderness protection, universal healthcare, and true, non-xenophobic, immigration reform.

And, if we’re going to be completely honest here, in my younger/college years, I did on a number of occasions, smoke my share of marijuana, and- I will confess here and now- enjoyed doing so thoroughly.

So you might think that I would be favorably inclined toward the legalization of (at least some) drugs, and yet at a gut level, I’m not. I’ve sort of half-wondered why this is, and last night, when our dinner was delivered, it suddenly dawned on me: Pizza.

Awesome Wife and I have a favorite local pizza place. They make great, high-quality and creative pizzas, deliver to our neighborhood*, and generally manage to find our house. But at least 50% of the time, the order is screwed up, and the pizza is made wrong.

*Unlike another well-known Pizza Place- let’s call it “The Pie”- who refuses to deliver to any address East of Foothill Blvd (we are 2 blocks past the limit) having determined everything East of this thoroughfare to be “the canyons.” Those guys are total geogratards.

We’ve discussed at length why this is so often the case with our orders, and have come to the firm conclusion- supported by numerous interactions with the employees of this establishment- that the majority of their staff is stoned the majority of the time. And this, right here, is what lies at the heart of my resistance to liberalization of US drug laws- the certain knowledge that if drugs are legalized, I will never ever get a pizza made right again.

Much of our continuing conversation has revolved around our common interest in biking. In years past, my dentist- let’s call him “Bill”, was also an avid cyclist. (pic right = actual photo of my dentist. I am telling you, he is awesome- best dentist I’ve ever had.) Like so many 40-something former cyclists, Bill doesn’t ride much anymore, and through our entire, decade-long single conversation, he has been talking about buying a new bike. Seriously, it’s been 10 years, and he’s still procrastinating over buying a new bike. Every visit he asks me my opinion about various brands and such, etc. Finally this time I just said, “Bill! It doesn’t matter. Any bike you buy today is going to be infinitely better than whatever circa-1980-elliptical-ringed-rusty piece of crap that’s sitting in your garage. We’ve been talking about this for a decade- just go buy a bike already!”

Nested Tangent For My Coworkers: Yes, I know that at least a half-dozen of you regularly read this blog (though by and large you are all too chickenshit to ever comment.) Anyway, you know what? There’s a guy in our office with whom I’ve been having the exact same, “I’m-gonna-buy-a-bike” conversation for 7 years. 7 years! Hint: he works on the 4^th floor.

I keep hoping that my dentist will have the same kind of 40-something realization that I did a couple years back, shortly before I started this project: I’m 40-something. I’m a [dentist/salesman/whatever-the-hell-it-is-I-do]. I’ll never be an astronaut or rock star or Secretary-General. This, right here, is my life, and instead of just striving and hoping and procrastinating and thinking “gee, maybe someday…” all the time, I’m going to start living it.

Part Of The Post Where I Get To The Point Already

So yeah, the solstice. That’s something you can easily blow off every year, and plan on checking it out the next year, but then one day you’ll be on your death-bed and you’ll be like, “Oh shit, I never really checked out the solstice…” Think about it- you live on this giant, tilted spinning ball that is whipping around and around this giant star at a ripping 66,000 mph. You may think, well I can’t see it because I’m not an astronaut, but you can see it- you just have to look up.

At around 1:30PM Saturday and Sunday in Salt Lake, the sun will be up at an astounding 72 degrees in the sky. We don’t look up at the noon-sun much (and we certainly shouldn’t look directly at it) but if you check it out, you’ll be startled with just how darn high* it is. And if you look around you at noon, check out the shadows- they’re teeny!

*Almost as high as the guy working the phones at Wasatch Pizza.

Even cooler than the sun’s up-down angle, check out it’s “side-to-side” angle, by which I mean the path it travels around the sky. Between sunrise and sunset, the solstice sun in Salt Lake will cover an astounding 244 degrees of the total horizon. (I explained how this works in this post, and won’t repeat it here, seeing as I spent too much time already going on about my dentist and stoner-pizza-guys.)

Although the noontime shadows may be teensy, if you pay attention to early morning and late afternoon shadows around your home or office, you’ll notice light and shade in places you rarely see them the rest of the year (including sunshine on the North side of your house!)

Monday the days will begin to get a little shorter. But interestingly, although the sunrises will start to get a bit later each day, the sunsets will still keep getting later for about another week. How can this be?

This Part Is Not Really That Complicated But Is Super-Hard To Explain

Because the Solar Day is longer at the solstices than it is at the equinoxes. The Solar Day is the time from one Solar Noon to the next, and this time varies slightly over the course of the year. Remember, each day, the Earth travels ~1/365^th of its path around the Sun. And because the Earth orbits the sun in the same direction as it rotates (counterclockwise) this orbital travel adds a little teeny bit of time to each solar day. From the standpoint of a non-rotating Earth, the Sun is creeping gradually East; from the standpoint of an Eastward-spinning Earth, it has to spin slightly more than a full rotation to “catch” the sun at noon each day. Our calendar of course is a solar calendar, and so accounts for this daily “catch-up”, which takes up about 4 minutes per day.

Side Note: A purely rotational day that ignores the position of the Sun is called a Sidereal Day. A Sidereal Day is roughly 4 minutes shorter than a Solar Day. Who cares about sidereal days? Astronomers, who want to know at what time which stars will be where…

OK This Is The Hard Part

But that’s 4 minutes on average; more time is added to the Solar Day at the solstices than at the equinoxes because the Sun changes its position relative to any given point on the Earth’s surface more each day around the Solstice than it does around the Equinox. The reason for this is the Earth’s axial tilt. At or near the solstices, the rotation of any point of the Earth’s surface at noon is pretty much parallel to the Earth’s orbital plane around the Sun, making the noontime change in relative Sun position effectively due East. But at or near the equinoxes, the rotation of any point of the Earth’s surface at noon is at around a 23.5 degree angle to the Earth’s orbital plan around the Sun, making the daily change in relative noon position is effectively Southeast (Fall) or Northeast (Spring.)

(I know this is way hard to envision, and I’m not doing a very good job explaining it. If you have a globe, play with it and a lamp and eventually it will make sense.)

This greater effective change makes the Solar Day (which again, is Solar Noon to Solar Noon) a titch longer, because a bit more “catch-up” is required, causing our Average-Solar-Day calendar to get just a bit ahead of itself around the Solstice, resulting in a slightly later sunset. Closer to the Equinox, the calendar “falls behind” a little bit in relation to the then shorter Solar Days, and over the course of the year it all averages out. Get it?

There’s a second factor at work, and that’s the elliptical nature of the Earth’s orbit. Aphelion*- when the Earth is closest to the Sun and traveling fastest- is around January 4 (close to the Winter Solstice) and perihelion- when the Earth is furthest from the Sun and traveling slowest- is around July 4 (close to the Summer Solstice.) But the axial tilt accounts for the vast majority of variation in Solar Day length.

*I explained aphelion and perihelion in this post.

So this next week- the post-Solstice week- is probably the best week of the year to do stuff after work, whether it’s bike, hike, run, play in the yard with the kids, or just smoke pot and deliver pizzas.

Happy Solstice everybody!

Final Serious Note: In some other parts of the world- mainly northerly places, like Scandinavian countries- the Solstice is a big holiday. I think that’s really cool, and I wish it were a big holiday here as well. But here in the US, there’s an even cooler holiday that we should all be celebrating in a really big way, and it’s today, June 19^th. It’s Juneteenth, a holiday celebrating the passage of the 13^th amendment and the emancipation of the slaves.

The 13^th amendment didn’t make everything right of course; African-Americans continued to get (and to a certain extent still do get) a shitty deal in this country for at least a century more. But the single best, coolest, most progressive thing this country ever did was abolish slavery. That’s something every American should be proud of, and a pretty great reason for a holiday. Unfortunately it doesn’t get the recognition it deserves*, but that doesn’t stop you from celebrating it, and maybe telling your kids why it’s so cool.

*Except in Texas. In my real life I have, many times, made fun of Texas, for everything from its kooky anti-science politics to its dismal zoning practices. But Texas is the one state which celebrates Juneteenth as a full state holiday (though several other states recognize it in varying, lesser degrees.) Way to go, Texas.

Mid-June @9,000 ft: Rebound, Violets, The Coolness Of Chemistry, Plus Bonus Marital Advice

Saturday, Awesome Wife and I went up to Park City- sans offspring- for an overnighter to celebrate our anniversary.

Sappy Part of Post Where I Gush About My Spouse And Give Unsolicited Marital Advice

Tangent: I have the coolest wife. If you knew my wife, you would immediately think 2 things:

1- “Oh man, I wish I had a cool wife like that plant-blogger guy. She is so way awesome!”

2- “How on Earth did a goofy guy like the Watcher get such a cool wife?”

The short answer to #2 is that I’ve spent almost my entire career in sales, and during that time have closed hundreds of deals, but only 1 of them really mattered.

Nested Tangent: While I’m a) on the topic and b) feeling a bit sentimental and preachy, I’ll follow up with 2 pieces of marital advice that sound way obvious, but which I’m continually amazed that so many people (both men and women) I know don’t seem to get:

1- Regularly compliment your spouse. Tell them they look great. When they do something great, tell them how great you think it is, whether it’s project around the house, solving a problem with a kid/neighbor/in-law, doing well in a race, a professional/ academic achievement, narrowly evading a car accident or cooking a great meal or whatever.

2- Always be on their side. If they tell you about a dispute at work or PTA or with friends or at Relief Society or the Board of Equalization hearing or whatever, they’re always in the right. It doesn’t matter if they screwed up or are being totally unreasonable- you’re on their side. Don’t be like Judge Judy or Dr. Phil; be like the best race-teammate ever.

Anyway we had a great time. Though the weather was problematic, we took advantage of a short break in the storms to do a nice little hike up toward Guardsman Pass, right at around 9,000 feet.

Side Note for UT Mtn Bikers: We hiked part of TG and the Guardsman-TG connector. Both were about 95% clear/ride-able, and expect they’ll be fully ride-able by this coming weekend.

The trails we hike had just barely melted out, and though the Aspens were leaved, the surrounding earth had only minimal green cover. This is a stage when I’m typically not on the trail this high- I usually wait a week or so more till things dry out a bit- and it was interesting to see what’s going on up there right now.

Compression, Pavement And Rebound

The ground is almost a “compressed pavement” of soil and dead leaves from the previous Fall. Looking at how firmly the dead Aspen leave are impacted into the soil, you can almost feel the weight of the recent snowpack. In fact I suspect that the soil itself is probably “re-bounding” a bit from the relatively sudden release of weight, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the ground actually rose an inch or so in the coming weeks.

Tangent: Don’t laugh; this really happens. A much larger-scale example is Northern Quebec, where the ground is still rising after being relieved of the weight of Ice Age glaciers*. There’s even a name for this type of action: Postglacial Rebound.

*Northern Quebec had a large, isolated remnant ice-sheet that lingered until only 6,000 – 7,000 years ago.

The whole topic of postglacial rebound is fascinating, particularly as it relates to global warming and rising sea levels. In areas where substantial rebound is still occurring (much of Nunavut, for example) it’s thought that such rebound will help to protect coastlines by offsetting predicted rises in sea level. But in other areas, such as the East side of Baffin Island, the rebound has pretty much played out, and so its coastline is considered threatened.

What’s really cool about this “pavement” (pic left) is that as the ground dries out and (I presume) the soil rebounds, cracks are developing, and it seems to be these cracks from which the first green shoots are emerging.*

*The shoots are doubtless forcing the cracks as well, so I imagine it’s a positive feedback type of thing…

The whole vibe of the forest is of a much earlier time in the year, reminiscent of the last weeks of March in the foothills, when the first spots of green were appearing. And it’s a good reminder of how, if you live near mountains, you can take advantage of different elevations to “stretch out” your experience of Spring.

Two New Flowers

On our entire hike, we saw just 2 flowers. The first is our old friend, Ballhead Waterleaf (pic right). We’ve seen this guy down at 5,000 feet in Dry Creek back in April, then up at 7,000 feet in early May, and now it’s an early pioneer up here at 9,000 feet. What a cool, versatile plant. I’ve grown to see this unassuming little flower as somewhat of an old friend in the Wasatch.

The other flower we saw was a newbie, and completely unlike anything we’ve seen lower down. It’s a Mountain Violet, Viola purpurea. At least 3 violets occur in Utah. Mountain Violet and the similar-but-larger Nutall’s Violet are yellow, the Blue Violet, Viola adunca, is uh, violet. Almost all violets are low-to-the-ground and herbaceous (no woody parts, stems, die off in the Fall.) The flowers are always 5-petaled and zygomorphic, meaning that they can be divided into symmetric halves only along a single axis, unlike say a Dandelion or a Lily, which can be halved symmetrically any which-way. The flower has clear pollinator-“guidelines”, similar to those we looked at yesterday on the Sticky Geranium, but mostly along the bottom, tongue-like petal, sort of like runway lights at an airport.

Viola is a worldwide genus with over 500 species, and it’s a way diverse, complicated genus that’s been the subject of extensive study. Not only are there all kinds of polyploid species, but the base haploid chromosome number ranges anywhere from n=4 to 17. Our Mountain Violet (n=6) is considered one of the more “primitive” North American species, meaning that it’s thought to be more similar to the supposed common violet ancestor species* than most other nearby species.

*Thought to have lived down in the Andes, and have had n=6.

Side Note: African Violets by the way are not violets, but one of several species of Saintpaulia, a genus native to East Africa that is only remotely related to true violets (completely different orders.) Garden Pansies are violets, but are cultivars of 3 different violet species.

A weird factoid I read about violets- but haven’t yet tested- has to do with their scent. A key component of the flower’s scent is a compound called ionone (C13H20O), and in fact it, and the closely related methyl ionones, have been used extensively in perfumes for about a century. But the weird thing is that supposedly ionone temporarily desensitizes the receptors in your olfactory epithelium (see this post for explanation of how smell works) so that the smell of a violet weakens after the first sniff. So you can sniff and sniff, but you never smell it any better… This factoid is worthy of not just 1- but 2 tangents.

Tangent #1: I’ve long noticed that Columbines are only good for a couple of sniffs before the smell fades (which I noted in a comment to this post on KB’s blog.) I always assumed it was because the scent was somehow “used up” after a couple of sniffs. But now I wonder if some ionone-style mechanism is at work. On the other hand, I seem to get the smell again as soon as I switch flowers, so maybe not… OK this tangent isn’t going anywhere, let’s move on to the next one…

Tangent #2: OK, I know these chemistry tangents are way geeky and boring for most readers, but pay attention for a minute: have you noticed that almost anytime I give a chemical formula for some chemical or agent or poison or scent or whatever, it’s almost always overwhelmingly composed of the same 3 elements- Carbon, Hydrogen and Oxygen? Yeah sure sometimes there’s a bit of Nitrogen, Sulfur, Phosphorus, Magnesium or whatever thrown in, but by and large, it’s like 9X+% of all the amazing things in the living world are made up of just different combinations of these 3 basic atoms. Seriously, think about it- that is totally way intense*!

*Yes, I know this is like completely “duh- hello…” to anyone with a background in chemistry or biology, but for those of us lay-people who never took an Organic Chem class, this is a huge eye-opener. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the single biggest shock of this whole project has been a) how phenomenally cool chemistry really is and b) how phenomenally sucky chemists are at marketing it to the masses. (OC Rick and Clean Colin- are you reading this? Well of course OC Rick isn’t because he never reads my blog…)

Mountain Violet is a teensy little flower; in another month, with shrubs grown up all around, you’d totally miss it. But right on the almost-bare, cold pavement of the forest floor, it’s spectacular. Spring and Summer are compressed up here, the growing season short. And because of that brevity, Summer days at 9,000+ feet in the Wasatch never feel lazy or “languid.” They’re busy, intense and high-energy, a 2-3 month-long explosion of life. I always find that the more summer days I can spend up at altitude, the more of that energy seems to rub off on me.

Mid-June @7,000 ft: Natives, Worms, Caterpillars, And Jungle-Riding

In mid-June in the Wasatch, peak Spring is at 7,000 feet. It’s that time when everything is way, super-green, the trails are tacky (or muddy, more like, this last week) and wildflowers are everywhere. When you move up from 5,000 feet to 7,000 feet, the big, immediately obvious difference is the lush greenery. But there’s another difference, just as dramatic, that becomes apparent as you learn to recognize the wildflowers: Up here, the natives dominate. Oh, there are still exotics around if you look for them, but overwhelmingly, the flowers you see at 7,000 feet are natives, unlike so many (probably the majority now) of the wildflowers at 5,000 feet.

Tangent: I don’t know why this is. Certainly many of the foothill areas I frequent- like across from the zoo- have been subject to disturbances which could have offered footholds for exotics. (pic right = Musk Thistle flower along Roller Coaster) But certainly much has been disturbed up around 7,000 feet as well (development, and before that mining and logging.) And the foothills abut the valley, which has hosted significant agriculture over the last century+, and that’s always a common pathway for the introduction of exotic weeds as well. But what seems to me most likely is that that valley/foothill climate is probably more similar (specifically the winters) to much of the areas of Europe and Asia from which most of our exotics originate. That’s just a guess though.

Already we’re into the 2^nd generation of wildflowers up around Pinebrook, Jeremy and Glenwild, and there are a couple of cool newbies we’ll check out today. But first, let’s catch up on some of those we looked at already.

There are still great patches of blooming Cutleaf Balsamroot, particularly on the switchbacks on the East side of the Flying Dog loop (pic right), but in most spots now they’ve peaked and are wilting. The Singlestem Groundsels, which so dominated the landscape just a couple of weeks ago are mostly battered and wilting as well. The Blue Penstemons though, which we looked at a couple of weeks ago, are everywhere, and they’re spectacular.

Although the Serviceberry bloom at 7,000 feet has peaked (but it’s still going strong up closer to 8,000 feet, as you get up on Mid-Mountain trail) the Chokecherry bloom (pic left) is still in full swing. With the recent heavy rains many of the flowers have begun to shed their petals, and sections of trail are now strewn with their little white petals.

Gross Tangent About Biking And Worms

Tangent: Speaking of things that are “strewn” right now, let’s get back to my uber-rant/manifesto from yesterday. After a week+ of rain, know what’s strewn all over the roads right now? Earthworms, that’s what.

Nested Tangent: So why do Earthworms come to the surface when it rains? To avoid drowning, right? Earthworms breathe through their skin (they have no lungs) so if the soil around them is water-logged, presumably they’ll drown, goes the conventional thinking.

Actually that’s probably not the case. Most near-surface groundwater holds a fair amount of dissolved oxygen, and so it probably take weeks of immersion in soaked soil to drown a worm. Rather the thinking is that rains provide the worms with a chance to relocate to new areas much more quickly via overland travel. Normally a worm needs to stay out of the open air lest its skin dries out (which would suffocate it.) But rainy days allow a worm to surface and cover lots of ground quickly* without drying out.

*By Earthworm standards.

So what? Here’s what- as you ride a bicycle along a worm-strewn road at high speed, the worms get flung up onto your bike’s frame, brake calipers, cables and water bottle cages. This morning when I crested Big Mountain Pass I noticed a dull spot in my cassette- pureed Earthworm smeared across cogs 2 through 4. Eeew….

Probably the biggest change up here in the last couple of weeks hasn’t been the flowers so much as it’s been the sheer fullness of the shrub foliage. The trails have all turned into cool green, mysterious tunnels, almost jungle-like in their lushness.

Jungle-Riding

Tangent: In coming weeks, this “jungle effect” will extend to the Aspen forests up around 8,000-9,000 feet.

The green tunnel/jungle effect thing is probably the biggest difference between riding at 7,000 feet in Utah and riding at 7,000 in Colorado. When I lived in Colorado, riding around 7,000 feet almost always meant riding through Pine forests (usually Ponderosa, sometimes Lodgepole.) When I moved to Utah it was mid-July, and the biggest surprise was that on all the rides I did that first month: Mill Creek, Park City, Mueller Park- the trails were lined with lush, leafy, shrubby vegetation.

Nested Tangent: The other big (and welcome) shock was how close by great Aspen-forest singletrack riding was to town. In CO, riding extended singletrack through Aspens usually meant a ~1 hour drive (Kenosha Pass, for example.) Around Park City, American Fork Canyon, and all the higher stuff in Mill Creek, Pinebrook or Jeremy, pretty much everything you ride is through Aspen forest.

And that’s not just the case in the Wasatch. The higher ranges of Southern Utah- the La Sals, the Abajos, and all across the Markagunt Plateau (Brian head, Virgin Rim)- are filled with great Aspen forest singletrack riding. The big, glaring exception to that rule is the Paunsaugunt Plateau (Red Canyon, Bryce), and interestingly that’s one of the few areas* in Southern Utah dominated by extensive Pine** forests.

*Not counting Piñon.

**Real Pines, not PLTs

Caterpillars

Speaking of Chokecherry foliage, you may have noticed that it’s loaded with these little caterpillar nests (pic right). I suspect that these are of the genus Coleophora, possibly Coleophora demissella (no common name), which is native to Western North America and feeds exclusively on Chokecherry leaves.

Side Note: I tried to dig up a photo of an adult C. demissella, with no luck. Most Coleophora look like generic, fairly unexceptional brown moths.

But If you leave in the Eastern US, and you see caterpillar nests among Chokecherry foliage, there’s a good chance it’s either White Admiral, Limentis arthemis arthemis, or Red-spotted Purple, Limentis arthemis astyanax, (pic left) which mimics another, poisonous, species, the Pipevine Swallowtail, Battus philenor.

They show a real preference for Chokecherry- I never see their nests in Oak, Maple, Serviceberry, or any of the other eye-level foliage at that altitude.

Back To Flowers

There are a number of new flowers out as well, including several that we looked at last year (follow the links if you’re interested) such as Scarlet Gilia (pic left) and the possibly para-carnivorous Sticky Geranium.

Side Note: Something I didn’t include in last year’s Geranium post- the dark, clearly visible veins in the Geranium petals (pic right) are hypothesized to be visual signals helping pollinators to “lock on” to the flower.

But there are also a couple of new flowers that we haven’t looked at before, and which are all pretty easy to spot right now. First is this guy, Pale Stickseed, Hackelia patens (pic left). It’s all over the place in small clearings, often co-occurring with stands of Penstemon (pic right). Hackelia is a genus of about 40 species, occurring in North America and Asia, which is part of the Forget-Me-Not or Borage family. Another Hackelia you can spot up in Pinebrook looks like similar but with blue flowers. It’s Small-flowered Stickseed, Hackelia micrantha. At first glance it looks just like a blue version of the Pale Stickseed, but it you look closely at the leaves you’ll see they’re different plant. The Pale (white) seems to be far more common than the Small-flowered (blue) around Pinebrook and Park City in general.

Another little white flower down close to the ground is this guy, Smallflower Woodland Star, Lithophragma parviflorum (pic left). Though small, low and easy to pass by, these flowers have a distinctive shape that makes them a cinch to ID once you notice them. They actually have only 5 petals, but they’re deeply lobed, giving the first impression of a flower with a dozen+ petals.

If this next one looks familiar, it should, because it’s another Wild Onion, similar to the one that KanyonKris and I spotted back at the end of April along the cliffs of the Virgin River Gorge. This is a different species, Tapertip Onion, Allium acuminatum. Tapertip Onion is a classic “2^nd generation” flower, in that it’s almost never the first thing to bloom where it’s found. The bulbs are edible and supposedly smell (and I assume taste) like onions. Haven’t tried it yet, hope to this week. Onions are monocots, and so are more closely-related to things like grasses and lilies than they are to any of the previous flowers in this post.

The last flower is also a monocot, and it’s a looker.

*Have you noticed that I always try to save the best flower for last? I do that to try to keep the non-plant-geek reader engaged. I figure if you’re not into plants, if you think there’s a really great-looking flower (or maybe a Selma Hayek photo) coming up, then maybe, just maybe, you’ll stick with the post a bit longer… And the other thing I noticed is that I almost always finish with blue flowers.

It’s Blue Camas, Camassia quamash. If it sounds familiar, it’s because I mentioned it back when I talked about Death Camas; this is the plant for which Death Camas is sometimes mistaken, with disastrous consequences.

Now when you look at these 2 flowers, you probably think: “Hey, these look way different. Who are the moronic Euell Gibbons-wannabes that are mixing them up?” And certainly the flowers look way, way different (pic below, right = Death Camas). But remember, they only bloom for this short little time of the year. The rest of the time, they look almost identical- same leaves, same bulbs. Only one will sustain you and the other will sicken (or kill) you. Which means that if you’re going to try a Camas bulb, right now is the time to do so.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Not that I’m suggesting in any way you do so. Liability and all that. Not that it would do you any good to sue me. My only possessions are boxes of slightly-damaged bike parts, about 30 flower/bird/wildlife guides, my mosquito head-net, and a Toyota with 140K miles on it. Oh, and my awesome pine cone collection. I will try a bulb though. And when you think about it, that’s the real beauty of this blog- I do all the bizarre, high-risk stuff- riding across natural bridges, eating wild roots, getting attacked by wild animals and German tourists, raising 3 small children- while you get to live the experiences vicariously at no risk to yourself. What a deal!

Right now most of the Blue Camas flowers are still closed, but many are starting to open, revealing their interiors, and in the shots below I’ve opened a couple up to reveal the anatomy of this flower, which is absolutely fascinating. Remember that it’s a monocot, and like with all monocots, things tend to occur in multiples of 3’s.

There are 6 petals and six stamens. The pistil bears 3 stigmas. But what’s particularly interesting is the differing height and appearance of the stamens. 3 are tall, and topped by beige-colored anthers. The other 3 are short and topped by blue-colored anthers. This arrangement of stamens- 3 short, 3 tall- is called tridynamous. Many flowers have varying length stamens, and common configurations besides tridynamous include didynamous (2 short, 2 tall), as well as tetradynamous (2 short, 4 tall.)

If there’s an obvious textbook explanation for the function of “polydynamous” stamens, I haven’t found it. But I’ll hazard 2 guesses. First would be to provide better pollen-dusting coverage of any pollinator entering the flower. Second would be to increase the likelihood of successfully dusting both large and small pollinators.

Taking flowers apart is geeky but fun. Every species is different, and that’s what’s so cool about flowers: there are just so many different designs and approaches to solving the same problem. Biologists love to go on and on about the diversity of living things, but sometimes it’s hard to appreciate; there are only a handful of tree species in the Wasatch, checking out birds and bugs close up requires time and patience, and too much time spent poring over lichens and mosses can drive you batty. But checking out flowers is easy, even for a lazy, ADD wannabe-naturalist like me.

Mid-June @5,000 ft, Beautiful Weeds, And My Anti-Precipitation Manifesto

I can’t believe we’re only a week away from the Solstice. It seemed like just yesterday I was shoveling snow and now there’s more than 15 hours between sunrise and sunset.

Tangent: And in case it snuck up on you or something, this week and next week are as much light as you’re going to get all year. So if you like to get out before or after work, and if it ever stops raining (more on that in a moment), this is the week you should stop making excuses and get out.

Mid-June is a good time to take stock of Spring, because at different altitudes right now it’s almost like completely different seasons. Today I’ll catch us up on what’s going on at the 5,000 foot level, tomorrow we’ll check out what’s happening at 7,000 feet, and Wednesday we’ll climb up to 9,000 feet, where the world is just now starting to wake up*.

*Like all my blog-plans, this one is subject to me flaking or changing my mind..

Saturday AM I squeaked in a quick Death Climb/Roller-Coaster Ride between showers, and much has changed in just the last week. First a couple of updates:

The Balsamroots are all but bare (pic above, right). Where you do find hanger-on flowers they’re battered and beaten. The Yellow Salsifies that dazzled me a couple weeks ago are still blooming but the first generation has already gone to seed. They look like giant Dandelion heads (pic left), and the achenes/parachutes are giant versions of those on Dandelions, allowing you to better see the fine detail of the achenes and their converted-calyx-parachutes (pic right). (For an explanation of what an achene is, and how it’s not a seed or a fruit, see this post.)

When you look down, alongside the trail, you might notice these little tufts of “wool” all over the place. These are the seedpods of the Woolly Milkvetch (pic left) that was flowering all over the place here 6-7 weeks ago.

But one of the prettiest updates is this: Sego Lilies are all over the place. Every white dot in this shot (below) is a blooming Calochortus nuttallii, and if you’re going to sneak a bulb-snack, this is probably your best week to do so.

There are also several new flowers blooming in the low foothills that we haven’t seen before. But first, let’s talk about the rain. Seriously, how long can it go on raining like this? More than a week now of crazy, torrential downpours. From time to time on this blog, I succumb to the middle-aged-man’s deepest, darkest, most burning desire: To Rant. But this rain is something else. This calls for more than just a rant; this calls for my…

Anti-Precipitation Manifesto

Tangent: I’m fully aware that no “manifesto” ever leads to anything really positive*. Look at the guys who write them: Marx & Engels, Bellegarrigue ,Tom Hayden, Ron Paul, the Unabomber. Seriously, whatever your politics, none of these guys is someone you’d set your sister up with**. But for good or evil, sometimes a “rant” just isn’t enough. You have to dress it up, give it a couple more syllables, and that’s when a manifesto is called for.

*Yes, yes, I know the Declaration of Independence was technically a manifesto. And we all know how important that was. If it weren’t for the Declaration and the ensuing War of Independence (Because the American Revolution was not a “revolution”, any more than the American Civil War was a “civil war”), we could well have ended up like Canada, what with nice people and real multi-party elections and universal healthcare and…wait a minute…

** Awesome Wife once said that one piece of dating advice she’d give to any single woman was to pass on any guy who has a manifesto.

Anyway, here it is. I hate rain. Absolutely hate it. I hate biking in the rain, hiking in the rain, camping in the rain or just driving in the rain. Yeah, you say, so what? We all hate it. No, we don’t. I hate it more than you, because I drastically changed my life, moved thousands of miles away from all of my friends and loved ones and relocated to the 2^nd-driest state in the nation, specifically to limit my exposure to rain.

I grew up in Massachusetts, where it frequently rains for days on end. And I hated it there too. But as I grew older, and I became aware of the larger world, I realized that there were places where it didn’t rain all the time, where most days were actually sunny, and you could do stuff outside almost every day. And a thought came into my head: that when I could, when I was through with school, and had a few years professional experience and a little bit of money saved up I would leave New England, and go live in one of those sunny places where it didn’t rain all the time.

Tangent: I remember exactly when and where I was when it finally gelled. It was a Monday morning in May 1989, and I was waiting for the Avis shuttle bus at the Newark Airport. The night before I had watched a video of “The Milagro Beanfield War”, a film full of beautiful open New Mexico vistas. And I thought, “What am I doing here at the Newark Airport? I should go live in a place that looks like that movie…”

My then-girlfriend and I researched dozens of possible Western locations. Our bible was a book called “The Places Rated Almanac”, which had all kinds of stats for every city in the US: population, crime, unemployment, cost of living/housing. But best of all it had weather stats. And Utah was the 2^nd-driest state in the country.

It took 6 more years, and several steps I won’t get into here*, but I made it. I finally wound up in Utah. And 99% of the time I love it. But I gave up a lot to get here. I moved thousands of miles away from… oh yeah I said that part already. Well anyway I love it here. Except when it rains.

*4 month-long road trip, 5 years in Colorado, 1^st marriage/ divorce, several dead-end jobs, pushing a handcart across Wyoming. OK I made the last one up.

And I have to say, it actually rains a fair amount here. Not just this week, but practically every time I venture into the backcountry. I can’t count the number of backpacking or camping trips I’ve been on in the most desolate-looking of places- places that look like sets out of the Coyote & Roadrunner cartoons- and it’s pouring rain! Why doesn’t this place look like Vermont? Anyway, the point is, I gave up a lot to get out of the rain, and so when it acts like New England or Seattle here for a week+, I get really pissed off…

Tangent: I will admit, the rain has kept the foothill grasses lush and green later than normal. Here’s a video off pre-storm winds creating “waves” in the grass @5,000 feet. (Yellow flowers in foreground = Yellow Salsify.)

Back to the Flowers Already

But just across the street from the zoo there are new flowers that weren’t there just a couple of weeks ago. In this shot (pic left)purple Lupine and yellow Toadflax stand out nicely against the fully-leafed Oak. These 2 flowers are all over the place. The Lupine is a native; I talked about Lupines in general last week up on Shoreline. This one, lower down, looks different (pic right), but I haven’t yet made the species ID; Lupines are tricky, with a lot of variation.

The yellow flower is another exotic, but it’s a beautiful one: Common Toadflax, Linaria vulgaris, also known as Butter-and-Eggs. Toadlflax is a common European weed which has escaped cultivation here. It’s a beautiful flower, with an elegant and distinctive snap-dragon-style architecture, and in fact Linaria is closely-related to Snapdragons (genus = Antirrhinum.) Both belong to the Plantain Family, Plantaginaceae.

Besides their cool-looking flowers, here are 2 neat things about Toadflax. First, the architecture of the flower, specifically its closed underlip, requires pollinators that are large/strong enough to pry then open. Here in Utah, the most common pollinators are Bumblebees.

Second, unlike most (practically all?) wildflowers around here, they do pretty well in a vase. And since they’re non-native, you can pick them guilt-free. So think about picking a bouquet for your sweetie.

Tangent: Seriously, the best reason not to pick wildflowers- enviro-ethics aside- is because they’ll wilt to nothing before you get them home. Over the course of this project I’ve picked a number of flowers in order to pull them apart and check out their anatomy under controlled (good light, no wind, etc.) conditions back home. Most are unrecognizable within a couple of hours. A Larkspur for example will be shriveled to almost nothing in less than 30 minutes.

Speaking of weeds, another common one down on the ground that’s appeared in the last couple weeks is this guy, Field Bindweed, Convolvulus arvensis, (pic right) also known as White Morning Glory, although the flowers range from white to pink, and most of ours around here seem to be faint pink with whitish stripes. It’s native to Eurasia but now grows wild in all 48 lower states and across Southern Canada. This flower is different from others we’ve looked at in that its 5 petals are fused, creating a funnel-like structure. Like Toadflax, it’s a weed, but another good-looking one, and it’s also all over the place in the lower foothills right now.

But I saved the best foothill-weed, and possibly the best flower shot of this blog ever- for last. Next time you mtn bike, run or hike the trails across the street from the zoo, take a moment before heading out, and walk about 30-40 feet down Sunnyside Ave, along the North side of the street, just past the exit from This Is The Place. Alongside the wooden fence, look for a few flowers that look sort of like big, blue Dandelions. It’s Blue Sailor, Cicorium intybus, and it is a stunner.

Like Dandelions, Balsamroots or Salsifies, Blue Sailor is a Composite, meaning that each “petal” is actually its own separate flower. And like Dandelions (and Salisifies) it’s a Ray-Only Composite, with no disk flowers in the center. Although it’s similar in form to a Dandelion, it’s bigger enough that it’s structure and anatomy is much easier to recognize, with the reproductive parts clearly connected to the base of each “petal”/ray flower.

Blue composites are very rare worldwide, and there are no native blue composites in Utah. Blue Sailor is native to Europe, and is also known by the common name Chicory. Its leaves are edible, and are sometimes (mistakenly) called “endive.” The roots have been used as a coffee substitute. Supposedly drinking Chicory-root coffee long-term impairs your vision, but that may be an old wives tale.

*True endive is another, closely-related species, Cichorium endivia.

Side Note: Several Asters and Daisies (both composites) are purple or lavender, but none are truly blue.

This is probably the easiest place around Salt Lake to see a blue composite growing wild. Take 2 minutes at the end of your next Shoreline trail ride and check it out.