Purdon Conservation

Purdon Conservation Area has been on our radar for decades. Ted & I visited it around 5 years ago, but just missed the blooming season of the Showy Lady's Slipper Orchids.

This conservation area consists of a fen surrounded by rocky hills. According to the Sierra Club, fens are wetlands that are connected to slow, but flowing water of small lakes and streams. As we entered the fen, tiny flowers appeared next to the boardwalk.

And then......

My camping buddies were impressed.

Hundreds of Showy Lady's Slipper Orchids! We began to understand why old Mr. Purdon, back in the 1940's, preserved the clump of these beauties that he found on his farm. Today, there are 14,000 of them! What conservation can do!

There is a nice loop of boardwalk in the low area.

The orchids can be seen from much of the boardwalk......

.... with other interesting bog plants like these pitcher plant flowers. I thought they were hellebores. Thank you google for straightening me out.

We were getting hungry, so we looped back to the truck to get our picnic lunch. Seeing 14,000 orchids makes you hungry. 🥴

There are convenient picnic tables near the lower parking lot. Lucky us!

Back in the fen, more interesting flowers presented themselves. White ones...

... and purple ones.

There are two lookouts leaving from the far side of the boardwalk loop. Blurry picture because we are going SO FAST!

Yesterday's smoke made for a hazy background when we finally made it to the first lookout.

Even close up scenes were pretty grey.

Back in the fen, we emerged from the darkness of the forest .....

.... to find even more interesting wetland plants.

I love friends who take the time to see if you are still behind them.

Another lookout and another smokey scene.

It was an up and down kind of day. Back in the lowlands, the odd iris was still in bloom....

..... and one pond was covered with hundreds of waterlilies.

If you look closely you can see them.

This trail is the poster child for the best kind of hike, downhill all the way home.

I think we all will be back one day.

Time to go back and see if everyone is up ..... and to get that tick bite looked after.

Oh the joys of adventuring.