Beargrass Bonanza

[drm]

I just spent four days on Mt Adams, doing three separate backpacks, driving between trailheads each day. Will do a trip report separately, but I wanted to report on one of the best beargrass blooms I've seen, top three for sure. It's on the Shorthorn Trail and the flowers start right at the trailhead and go, off and on, for over a mile. Beargrass has a good lifetime so I expect this will go on for a while.

[Chip Down]

It's been my perception that Beargrass thrives after fire, but I'm not sure I trust myself on that.

[Don Nelsen]

Wow! That's some epic beargrass.

dn

[drm]

I've seen good beargrass blooms in burns and I've seen them not in burns. Maybe it is one condition for them.

[retired jerry]

some years they're better, some worse. In the same location with no fire.

maybe it's weather

maybe it's that "they remember" they bloomed a lot one year and do it less the next

[drm]

From wikipedia:

an important part of the fire ecology of regions where it is native. It has rhizomes which survive fire that clears dead and dying plant matter from the surface of the ground. The plant thrives with periodic burns and is often the first plant to sprout in a scorched area.

Plant colonies typically only bloom every five to seven years.

Nonetheless, I saw a fantastic bloom on Tanner Ridge before it burned in the Eagle Creek fire.