colonel devlin and railroad tunnel trail

If you remember how excited I got when I found out about Rackensack Canyon, you have a feeling for how great I thought yesterday’s hike was! We went on the Colonel Devlin Trail starting at Washington Park Trailhead outside of Payson. TONS of flowers I’ve never seen. Most were just starting to bloom so there’s still plenty of time to photograph them. You’re following a stream much of the way which is thick with yellow Columbine on the banks right now. I hope to go back before they’re gone. For a photographer, I would call this an all day trip.

We ended up finding 26 varieties of butterflies. The wind made it difficult to get sharp photos of them all but I do have quite a few. I hope to create a slideshow this afternoon for Monday’s post. In the meantime, here are a couple of photos.

The trail is steep in places but not difficult if you go slowly
The trail is steep in places but not difficult if you go slowly

This was the coolest plant we saw. Stalks about 3 feet tall.
This was the coolest plant we saw. Stalks about 3 feet tall.

One thought on “colonel devlin and railroad tunnel trail”

  1. That IS a cool plant! I’ve never seen it. It’s monument plant, aka elkweed, or Frasera speciosa to you Latin fans. (Used to be called Swertia radiata, and a few other names.) The flower is distinctive of the gentian family, though, so I was able to find it pretty quickly in SEINet.

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