Tahoe trails part 4. The Meiss Meadows were a feature of days 3, 4 and 5 on the trails. At the far end of the meadow in this photo you can just about see the Meiss cabins which stand to this day from when they were a homestead for the Meiss family who farmed here in the 19th. century.
On days 3 and 4 I headed further south on the Pacific Crest Trail to check out wildflowers in the Carson Pass area [see part 2]. On day 5 I broke camp at Showers Lake and turned east at the cabins to pick up the Tahoe Rim Trail and backpack to Dardanelles Lake.
The Meiss Meadows are renowned for their wild flowers which are usually waist high by mid-July. The meadows were verdant but the blooms were at least several weeks behind schedule after the exceptional snowfall.
Indeed the lingering patches of snow tell the story that peak growth and flowering was still a week or two away for the taller plants.
In my visits to the alpine areas of California and Oregon it's been a mix of judgement and luck to arrive at the right moment i.e. after the snows have melted and before the landscape becomes parched. The wildflower season generally falls between mid-June and mid-August but that's give or take a few weeks depending on conditions.
That's not to say that the Meiss Meadows were a disappointment however. They were spectacularly scenic and a fellow hiker noted that we were seeing springtime in the meadows (albeit in July). The smaller, daintier spring ephemerals were there in abundance. For example on a side trail that ran towards the cabins I saw a haze of exquisite low growing magenta flowers along a marshy streamside.
I noticed another hiker inspecting them closely and I asked if she knew anything about them. She said it was rare to see them and told me their name: Alpine Shooting Stars.
Looking this up in one of my reference books I learn that their Latin name is Dodecatheon alpinum and they are of the Primrose (Primulaceae) family. So that's the correct botanical nomenclature but I shall always think of them as Alpine Shooting Stars.