Lupins and other wildflowers in bloom in an alpine meadow in Garibaldi Provincial Park

Yesterday we hiked from the top of the Whistler Gondola, over the Musical Bumps and down Singing Pass trail back to Whistler. Although the hike is generally downhill – you get off the gondola at 1809 m and eventually get back at the village at 652 m – the 20k hike is quite rigorous and involves many ups and downs. This particular hike is one of BC’s best: the view is spectacular and the path travels through a variety of environments including rocky moraines, alpine meadows and old-growth forests.

Our timing was perfect, as the alpine wildflowers are now in full bloom. The photo (above) doesn’t really do the flowers justice; each meadow we walked through featured different combinations and colors of flowers. The trail down from Singing Pass was also lined with many different blossoms, many of which are familiar to me because they used to grew in our garden.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I inherited my garden from my late in-laws who specialized in alpine gardens. Vlad was a member of the Alpine Flower Club and Marta loved wildflowers and successfully cultivated many types in the yard including gentians (below), which continue to thrive. We also used to have a number of different types of lupines, but none of them bloomed this year. I have a horrible suspicion that I may have pulled out many of these plants early in the season, thinking that they were weeds.

Note for next year: only pull out the familiar weeds.

White and purple gentians (not the best picture)