Lilium parvum

To the off-trail hiker go the spoils....

Literally stumbled on this Sierra Tiger Lily (aka Alpine Lily) on my way to the road today. I practically fell over when I spotted it--I came to an abrupt stop while running cross-country through the woods. After recovering from my near tumble I threw my fist in the air ala Judd Nelson in the Breakfast Club and did a happy dance. I've seen the closely related Leopard Lily south of Yosemite before, but never this species, which is native to the Sierra Nevada mountains.

It is so freaking beautiful. Those bursts of orange against the dull (albeit lovely) greens and browns of the forest floor took my breath away. I checked around the area and couldn't find any others--this was the only one. This is what gets me about wildflowers. They are creatures of unfathomable beauty--and yet they don't require or demand acknowledgment of this from us in the slightest. They just are, they just grow. This plant could have lived, flowered, and died out there in the wilderness without me or anyone else ever knowing it, and it would have been complete in its existence. And yet somehow, running through the forest with my head on the road and its accoutrements, curving around this rock and ducking past that tree, I found her. I reveled in her perfection yet she was nonchalant, unconcerned. She made my entire day, fulfilled and inspired my imagination, and she could care less, for she just is, and that's all she'll ever need to be.

*****

Backblips begin 13 July....