Colorado...a different world!

13 comments

Back in 2005-2006 my husband and I moved to Colorado for 18 months. We lived in the San Luis Valley, which lies between Wolf Creek Pass in the West and La Veta Pass in the east.

We had come to Colorado with the same misunderstanding that most folks do….You see all the ads and you expect to see the rocky mountains, snow, wildlife and glorious vistas in all directions. We had Mountains ranges in all directions around us but we were not on those mountains! What we found was a high Alpine desert! Everywhere you look there was cactus of some kind.

We lived at the foot of Mt Blanca (14345 ft above sea level) in the outskirts of the town of Blanca (approx. 8000 ft above sea level)

Shortly after we arrived we had our first snowstorm!

The same day we saw the first storm over Mt Blanca we also found these plants in bloom…

Ribes cereum Douglas var. cereum Wax Current

Ribes cereum-wax currant

Sunrise was almost always beautiful

We saw flowers from the day of the snow on….

Flatspine Stickseed-Lappula occidentalis

Golden Smoke-Corydalis aurea (Small)

But then there are always the plants we haven’t identified!

Next time we will go look back at the cactus that grew there!

4 Jan, 2010
13 likes

Comments

Muddywalters

Great blog Healerwitch - harsh growing conditions. I really like the photo of the storm over Mt Blanca, I think I'd be running for home after taking that ! :-)

4 Jan, 2010

Hywel

I love cacti. I would have loved to see them growing wild. Did they ever get covered by snow ?

4 Jan, 2010

Ian_digs_v2

Wonderful views but surprising weather HW.

4 Jan, 2010

Paulthegard..

Spectacular!

4 Jan, 2010

Clarice

Enjoyed the blog and photos

4 Jan, 2010

Sixpence

Fantastic pictures love the cactus too.

4 Jan, 2010

Hollyeves

great blog.......... and pics

4 Jan, 2010

Healerwitch

Thanks everyone!

Muddywalters...I was at home, my new home....so I turned around and went back in the house!

Ian we went from over 100 degrees F in June to well below 0 degrees in Nov - March!

Hywel....what was surprising to me, is that we had very little snow! We had a total yearly precipitation of only around 9 inches

=^..^=

4 Jan, 2010

Hywel

Interesting how the cacti survive snow, even if it's only a little bit.

4 Jan, 2010

Healerwitch

Hywel...we get snow here on the east coast and have several types of cacti that grow here through all the winter weather including ice and snow! (they just get bigger here!)

4 Jan, 2010

Hywel

I have lots of cacti but I wouldn't leave them out in the snow. I think the damp soil we have here would make them rot. They can take low temperatures if kept dry.

4 Jan, 2010