A digital guide to Glacier's wildflowers
Shawn Coggins put in 240 miles and climbed 36,000 vertical feet last year hiking the trails of Western Montana. He’s seen a lot over those miles, but one thing can stop him dead in his tracks — a wildflower.
Coggins is always looking for a wildflower that he hasn’t seen before — a purple columbine in Glacier National Park. Or he’s trying to get to the flowers that only last a short time because they quickly get eaten by animals — the fairy slipper. But he also has time for his favorites — glacier lilies in full bloom creating a yellow meadow near Granite Park Chalet or beargrass painting the hillside white at Haystack Butte.
“I like the challenge of finding where they are,” said Coggins, who lives in Whitefish.
Coggins has turned his passion for wildflowers and 10 years of photography work into the iBook, “A Slow Hiker's Guide to Glacier National Park Wildflowers,” available for the iPad.
Coggins photography has been featured at galleries in Whitefish and he manages the website www.glacierhikers.com. As he was hiking the trails and taking photos for the website, he began to realize he had enough wildflower photos to turn into a book.
He said most wildflower books have pictures that make it hard to identify the wildflowers.
“The beauty of the iBook is the quality,” he said. “Most other books have these tiny, blurry photos.”
He is continually updating his book, as well, to reflect his best shots of some of the flowers and where he has spotted the flowers.
In the book, the flowers are indexed by colors making it easy to dive into identification. There is technical information on each flower, including links to more resources. With the exception of rare flowers, he also provides trail information on were to find the flower.
Over the years, Coggins has learned the patterns of the flowers he is seeking — where they can often be found and what season to look for them.
But this spring and summer have been interesting with the below average rainfall and warmer temperatures.
“This crazy weather is compressing the season,” he said. “We’re seeing flowers in May and now that we normally wouldn’t see blooming until July. There’s also more of the flowers that like it drier.”
The lack of snow this year has been a plus, he said.
“The benefit this year is that I can hike to higher elevations earlier than I normally would be able to because the trail usually isn’t clear,” he said.
“A Slow Hikers Guide to Glacier National Park Wildflowers” contains more than 400 photos and is available for $4.99. Get the book at https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/glacier-national-park-wildflowers/id904051651?mt=11