Quick Overview of this newsletter:

1. 🌼 Ashland Wildflower Weekend Trip Report
2. ⏰ Timing & Finding Wildflowers
3. ☀️ Training for Summer Hikes
4. 🗺️ Product of the Month
5. 💌 Tell a Friend About the Moderately Newsletter
6. 🌸 Seasonal Treat

Happy wildflower season!

Have you ever considered doing a weekend trip just to see wildflowers? After seeing colorful flower-filled photos every time I looked up trails, I finally took action to see the balsamroot and lupine in the Columbia River Gorge in 2025. I was there a tad early for the season, but I still count it as a phenomenal success (which is the cover photo). This year, I went down to Ashland, Oregon, in mid-April.

Ashland was a blast. It didn’t have the blow-your-hair-back meadows covered with neon balsamroot, but it did spot the rare Fritillaria Gentneri and other adorable cuties. It could also be that I was a little early for the season. While I am not a birder, I absolutely channeled one as I methodically walked the trails, hunting for specific flowers. My weekend entailed:

• Hiking at Jacksonville Woodlands, Enchanted Forest Trail, and Upper Table Rock
• Vegan food at Rooted: Eat More Plants, Dobra Tea, Flour & Farm Stand, Drunk Goats supper club, and the Ashland Co-op
• Soaking at Chozu Bath House and Waterstone Spa

The weather was dynamic and exciting with downpours, rainbows, and vibrant puffy clouds against blue skies. I did get caught in the rain on three separate occasions, but was prepared with a rain jacket and an eye on the weather app. Oregon is bursting with greenery right now, and it was a treat to get out there in the crispy clear weather.

I hope you get outside soon and appreciate the flowers,

Hanna

Upper left: Shooting Star flowers at the Jacksonville Woodlands. Upper right: Camas flowers at Upper Table Rock near Medford. Lower Right: Chozu Bath and Tea House. Lower Left: Views along the Enchanted Forest Hike.

Timing & Finding Wildflowers

The hardest parts of planning a wildflower weekend are the timing and finding the wildflowers. For timing, it helps to pay attention this year, right now, to the weather and blooms in your area, for you to have a better idea for next year.

For locations, I’ve been using a mix of resources, including:

• ​Oregon Wildflowers Facebook Group -- This massive group encourages people to post their wildflower updates. It is well-moderated, and people often offer helpful recommendations or help identify flowers. Lately, I’ve been lurking in the group daily. Is there one in your state?
• ​Northwest Wildflowers Website -- I believe the map and site are updated based on the range of when certain flowers will typically bloom, not taking live information each year.
• Googling “Wildflower hikes in _____” to see what recommendations people have from previous years.
• ​AllTrails -- Reviews of popular trails often include photos or mentions of flowers with timestamps, which is helpful.
• Talk with locals -- In Ashland, some locals confirmed Upper Table Rock was blooming. And fellow wildflower enthusiasts may have good recommendations while on the trail. ​​

This is Cats Ears or Calochortus Tolmiei was maybe my favorite flower from the weekend trip.

Training for Summer Hikes

Now is also the time to begin training for any ambitious summer summits or backpacking trips. Training doesn’t sound fun, but these wildflower hikes always show me how far out of hiking shape I have become since November.

My most in-depth blog post about hiking training is about how I prepared to hike Mt. Whitney. The timeframe was very tight, making the training schedule far more aggressive than something I would put together now, but there are nuggets of wisdom built into the post. Here are a few reminders:

• Hiking is the best training for hiking.
• Focus on mileage and not speed.
• Start with the highest level you can easily handle, then add a bit more mileage on each consecutive hike.
• For backpacking, wear your pack and add weight.
• Choose exciting training hikes to help you maintain consistency.
• The more you train, the more you will enjoy the actual experience.

Product of the Month

It’s no secret that I use AllTrails for hiking. I have the pro version ($40/year) and try to download a trail map for nearly every hike I do, whether I end up writing about it or not. There are other GPS-based trail maps, which might be better - I’ve heard good things about Gaia - so you don't have to use AllTrails. But in case you would like to, here's how I use the app...

Download the map every time. This has saved me so many times from following the wrong trail or getting lost on the way back. It’s even helped me navigate the unlabeled dirt roads in Oregon when I don’t have service, and I didn’t have Google Maps downloaded (this has happened twice).

Don’t rely too much on the easy-moderate-difficult categorization. On TikTok, I laugh along with videos of people making fun of an “easy” or “moderate” hike on AllTrails because it's truly a flawed system. How hard a hike is can be very subjective, so I tend to ignore this metric and focus on distance and elevation. Though I do dig a little deeper into the reviews if they're categorized as “difficult” to find out why.

Read reviews to better plan for conditions. The reviews have helped me over and over again with preparing for dirt roads to trailheads, mosquitoes or bug density, and when wildflowers are blooming on a trail.

Save interesting hikes to lists. Saving various hikes to different lists has also come in very handy when I revisit locations, like Lake Tahoe, so I’m not starting from scratch when researching an area once again.

Skip tracking your progress. And I really don’t use the tracking option because I prefer to save my phone battery for photos. If you do track your hikes, bring an extra battery!

Tell a Friend About the Moderately Newsletter

If you’ve been enjoying my mix of travel and seasonal activities, would you consider forwarding my newsletter to a friend? Maybe a friend you want to go with on a wildflower weekend?

💌 💌 💌

If you’re getting this email from a friend, they're quietly asking to go look at wildflowers with you and think you might like my content.

Seasonal Treat

This is the Fritillaria Gentneri - a rare flower that is endemic (native and restricted to) southwest Oregon and Northern California. Its bright red flower was easiest to spot at the Jacksonville Woodlands. Very cool!