angles. Often the third or fourth shot will turn out to be the best one.
•Avoid harsh lighting. While high contrast can sometimes produce interesting images, flower petals are often somewhat reflective, which can spoil the photograph. Consider underexposing your photos in bright lighting and correcting them later.
•If you’re using a cell phone camera with HDR (high-dynamic range), try out that feature to boost the contrast in your images. Portrait mode can blur the background in an appealing way. Remember that many cell phones have a panorama mode that is excellent for big landscapes. Avoid using zoom and cropping images, which can degrade the quality.
•Avoid selfies. Have someone else take a picture of you so you can stay safe and avoid damaging the vegetation.
Mount Townsend seen from summit of Mount Zion (Hike 3)
WILDFLOWER IDENTIFICATION GUIDE
Washington State is home to thousands of different wildflowers and flowering plants, with some subspecies unique to a small area of the state. With such a broad range of plants to try and identify, serious flower-hounds often end up collecting multiple books and pamphlets on plant identification as they become more proficient at recognizing different species. For hikers just getting started, we’ve included this short flower identification guide curated from the more than 300 species we reference within these pages. We found and photographed each of the 120 flowers listed here on our treks down these trails, which makes it likely you will encounter them as well.
The wildflowers are organized by bloom color and then listed alphabetically to help you quickly narrow down your search. Featured wildflowers are indicated by a bright green box displaying the hike number; refer to that hike for more detailed information about and background on that flower. With regard to common names, some species are known locally by a variety of them; we chose common names based on their prevalence and our familiarity with them. You may know some of these wildflowers by other names. This guide will broaden your understanding and knowledge.
WHITE
Alpine buckwheat
Alpine pennycress
American bistort 13
Avalanche lily 31
Beargrass 26
Bunchberry
Chickweed
Columbia milkvetch
Columbia windflower
False Solomon’s seal
Indian pipe 19
Large-flower triteleia
Lyall’s mariposa lily
Mountain death camas 4
Pearly everlasting
Red elderberry
Scalloped onion 2
Serviceberry
Sickletop lousewort
Smooth woodland star
Spotted saxifrage 9
Spring beauty
Starflower
Starry false lily of the valley
Subalpine mariposa lily 38
Subalpine sulphur flower 14
