Wildflower Walk

July 10, 2015 - HIKE

July is here and it certainly is a busy month with dozens of fun things to do.  However, I do hope you’ll be able to slow down and smell the roses, wild roses that is.  The wild flowers up Lousy Jim Creek are fantastic and this trail is accessed right off pavement so any car can get there.  You’ll gain only 500 feet elevation over a one mile route while passing nature’s palette of colorful blooms.  At less than half inch diameter, the flavor of wild strawberries is incredible and I found many ripe ones here on July 3rd.  By month’s end the raspberries will also be on.  Yum!

Drive up Beaver Canyon to the pond at Merchant Valley and across the highway from where the stream enters the pond, there’s a camping site on the North side of the highway.  Park at the back of this site where a small sign displays “no ATV’s or motorized vehicles”.  Hike northwesterly along the base of a sage covered slope on your right and Lousy Jim Creek will be on your left.  Head between the trunk of the largest aspen and a spruce tree and you should pick up the trail.  Keep in mind this trail is not on maps and is more like a series of connected game trails, so keep eyes open for cut log ends and cairns to follow the best route.  If in doubt, just keep heading up canyon north and northwest until you run into the Jimmie Reed road (FR 124) in one mile.  When you reach the Jimmie Reed road you could go left and join trail 163 (USFS’s Lousy Jim trail) or go  right and walk the road down the purple soil dugway crossing Crazy Creek and out to the restroom facilities at Merchant Valley, then walk 0.4 miles down highway 153 to your vehicle.  Total mileage for this loop is 2.5.  Or, if you need to forage for more strawberries, go back the way you came.  Wild strawberries look similar to garden varieties, but they’re much shorter, leaves are less glossy and the biggest identifier aside from the fruit, is the 4-12 inch red runners that form new plants where they touch down to the soil.   Here’s some flowers I identified:  columbine, lupine, heart-leafed arnica, penstemon, wild rose, aster, dandelion, and indian paintbrush.  Please take only photos of the flowers so they can mature and spread their seed to ensure beauty for years to come.

A brief reminder about lightning and weather preparedness.  Last week when it was 85 degrees in town I was energized by 70 degrees at Merchant Valley and after a thunderstorm soaked the landscape,  it dropped to downright chilly at 58!  Pack a rainjacket, ALWAYS! and do your best to stay dry as long as possible.  If getting soaked is imminent head back to the car to avoid hypothermia.  Afternoon thunderstorms boil up almost daily in July and August and you should use good judgement to minimize risk of lightning injuries.  Best choice for protection is to get indoors or inside a vehicle, but if that’s miles away, don’t be the highest object in an area, like in an open clearing or on exposed ridgelines/summits.  Don’t seek shelter under tall trees either.  Only 5% of lightning fatalities are direct strikes, where most deaths are from ground current or horizontal “splashing” of voltage.  The safest position is to crouch down in a ball with feet close together to lessen the voltage that could pass through you if lightning strikes within 50 M of you.  For 8 additional hikes near Beaver, visit mcmullins.wix.com/intothetushars and do what Travelocity recommends, “Go and Smell the Roses” in The Tushars!