12 great walks for enjoying wildflowers

Our greatest flower garden is in the great outdoors, but catching the wildflower display is tricky. If you’re too early or too late, you’ll miss the show.

Here are my recommendations for top wildflower walks from March to August. I’ve chosen two trips for each month — not too far away, not too difficult and not too crowded.

March

March is the cruelest month for wildflower lovers. You are so done with winter, so ready for spring. Daffodils are blooming in everybody’s yard. The showiest wildflowers, however, are still biding their time. You’ll be looking for spring beauties, osoberry (“Indian plum”) and a few early trilliums. The best hikes will be low and sunny, along rivers.

Start with the Mount Pisgah Arboretum, off Seavey Loop Road from the 30th Avenue exit of Interstate 5 south of Springfield. The annual Wildflower Festival will bring crowds to see a pavilion packed with labeled wildflowers on May 17, but in March, you’ll have much less company. Don’t climb the 1.5-mile trail to the summit. Instead, stay low, strolling from the arboretum’s visitor center along the Coast Fork of the Willamette River for 0.6 miles to a footbridge across a pond where turtles sometimes bask. 

Then head to Dorris Ranch, at the south end of Springfield’s Second Street. A 2.4-mile loop traverses an old hazelnut orchard to the banks of the Middle Fork Willamette River.

April

In April, the flowers of the Coast Range are waking up, while most years, the Cascades snooze under a blanket of snow. Big, three-petaled trilliums lift their heads up from the coastal duff. Hummingbirds sip from red salmonberry blooms. Skunk cabbage puts up beautiful, football-sized yellow flowers. OK, it’s true that skunk cabbage smells like rotten meat. That’s just a ploy to attract flies as pollinators.

Head to the beach at Sutton Creek, 5 miles north of Florence on Highway 101. From the end of the paved entrance road, a 300-foot trail leads to Holman Vista, with a view across the dunes to the sea. Turn around and follow Sutton Creek upstream to find a 1.3-mile loop trail with a romantic footbridge and lots of coastal flowers.

April is also my favorite month to hike the Deschutes River Trail near Bend. There’s something magical about a desert river in spring, the air rich with pine and sagebrush. Sand lilies bloom out of nothing. The sky is blue, rainless, perfect. Start at Tumalo State Park ($10 parking fee) and hike downstream 2 miles to a canyon loop.

May

May brings Mother’s Day, when you really need to take Mom on a wildflower hike rather than buy cut flowers. The foothills are abloom, ready to help.

Wild Iris Ridge is the closest option, where Bailey Hill Road joins Bertelsen Road south of Churchill High School. If I told you a 3.7-mile loop climbs under powerlines to a water tower shaped like a giant toadstool, you might not want to go. But believe me, it’s a lovely place, with views and flowers. 

Horse Rock Ridge is one of my favorite May escapes, a secret wildflower hideout in the Coburg Hills. The meadow here has fuzzy cats ears, orange paintbrush, and purple larkspur months before they bloom elsewhere. To protect the area from off-road vehicles, the trailhead is hidden. Drive past Shotgun Creek’s well-marked county park on a paved road 5.7 miles to GPS coordinates 44.293 -122.867.

June

In June, crowds of wildflower lovers converge on Iron Mountain, at Tombstone Pass on Highway 20 east of Sweet Home. Let’s do something else this year.

Instead, let’s hike up Marys Peak, the highest point of the Coast Range. West of Corvallis, this peak has all the alpine flowers you want, along with views that pivot from Mt. Rainier to the Pacific Ocean. The hike is easier than at Iron Mountain, following a service road 0.6 miles to a summit meadow.

For a woodsier wildflower hike in the Cascades, head to Tire Mountain, near Oakridge. This hike starts in the forest but breaks out into spectacular wildflower meadows with views of Diamond Peak. The drive to the trailhead involves 6.3 miles of gravel road, leading to the GPS coordinates 43.837, -122.483. 

July

By July, the High Cascade wildflowers are ready, and so are the mosquitoes. Avoid the bugs with two mid-elevation hikes where you can enjoy the flowers in peace.

Horsepasture Mountain is a meadowed knoll above McKenzie Bridge with a front-row view of the Three Sisters. The 1.4-mile trail to the summit gains 910 feet of elevation — not bad for a moderate day hike. You’ll see beargress plumes, vanilla leaf, columbine, coneflower and all the Cascade favorites. A road washout has lengthened the drive to the trailhead, so expect 10 miles of gravel.

Tidbits Mountain, north of Blue River, is another wildflower favorite. The trail starts in old-growth woods full of pink rhododendrons before climbing to the craggy rock “tidbits” that gave the mountain its name. Giant white Cascade lilies bloom near the summit’s former fire lookout site. Find the trailhead by driving past Blue River Reservoir on 8.3 miles of gravel Road 1509.

August

In August, the highest alpine wildflowers finally bloom. You’ll have to buy advance permits to hike most of the trails to high mountain meadows. But there are some exceptions, and I’m going to recommend two of the best.

The easy half-mile trail to Hand Lake is just about the only wildflower hike at McKenzie Pass that doesn’t require a special permit. The path leads to a rustic shelter at a lakeside meadow with pink shooting stars and blue lupine. The trailhead is a small pullout 4.5 miles west of McKenzie Pass, between mileposts 72 and 73.

Three Creek Lake is a popular summertime destination against the cliffs of Broken Top, but the flowers are better at its less-known neighbor, Little Three Creek Lake. To find it from downtown Sisters, turn south on Elm Street (which becomes Road 15) for 13.9 paved miles and another 0.8 mile of gravel to the Three Creek Meadow Horse Camp. From there a 1.5-mile trail climbs through increasingly spectacular flower meadows to Little Three Creek Lake. Expect blue gentians, red paintbrush, pink monkeyflower, and all the rest. Wildflower heaven!