With severe storm potential forecast in the southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming region the next day, Elke and I decided to head from Denver up to Buffalo WY on 15 Jun 7 get in good position. This also allowed us to eat a fine meal in Buffalo, and to head up into the Bighorns that evening and the next morning for springtime photography around the Cloud Peak Skyway. Neither of us had been in these highlands before, and the experience was well worth the time and effort! The bounteous carpets of wildflowers up there were some of the best we've seen. Here are some select images from that adventure, as well as another "pass through" day trip in 2013--when we decided to come back on the way to Montana storm potential, then encountered some storms right in the mountains.

Arrowleaf balsamroot (yellow, a.k.a. Balsamorhize sagittata) with purple larkspur	Cirrus plumes seeming to stream off the cliffs of Ordovician Bighorn Dolomite	Prairie smoke a.k.a. Geum triflorum	Lupine cluster
Stormy mountain skies beyond lupine field	Towers of prairie smoke--the flower, that is!	Classic western scene -- snowcapped peaks beyond fields of flowers. Anvils are from early storms in the northern Bighorn Basin.	Nelson larkspur (Delphinium nuttallianum). Don't feed it to yourself or your horse; the entire plant is toxic.
Evening in the Bighorns: Slate skies beyond fields of wildflowers	White locoweed (Oxytropis sericea)--livestock like it, but suffer from its cumulative toxin.	Wildflowers! Snow-capped mountains! Storm clouds!	Carpet of flowers: lupines, larkspur and balsamroot
Rocky Mountain phlox (Phlox multiflora) near Meadowlark Lake. Cheyenne Indians crushed the leaves and flowers to use as a stimulant.	Artistically convective sky overhead in the Bighorns	Mountain goldenbanner (Thermopsis montana)

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PAGE TWO: BIGHORNS PHOTOGRAPHY

Roger & Elke Edwards Digital Photo Galleries

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