Since it was Monday, and the nursery is closed, we took a drive up Wentworth Springs Road past Georgetown to Loon Lake and Gerle Creek Reservoir. These bodies of water are where we get the water for the nursery. It sits at about 6500 feet in the Crystal Basin Region of The Eldorado National Forest. The snow must have just melted since I came upon a Snowflower (Sarcodes sanguinea). These plants show up right as snow is melting, sometime poking up through the snow. I found out that where we were was inaccessible just a week ago, because of snow. It was hard to miss driving along the road as it was the only bright red flower in view. It only occurs between 4000 and 8000 foot elevation. Here is what John Muir had to say, "... It is a singularly cold and unsympathetic plant. Everybody admires it as a wonderful curiosity, but nobody loves it as lilies, violets, roses, daisies are loved. Without fragrance, it stands beneath the pines and firs lonely and silent, as if unacquainted with any other plant in the world; never moving in the wildest storms; rigid as if lifeless, though covered with beautiful rosy flowers."
The drive up Wentworth Springs Road is one of the most beautiful drives in California. It takes us a little over an hour to get to Loon Lake, if we don't stop 
to look at spectacular views and plants along the way. The dogwoods and ceanothus were still blooming since in the high country spring was just starting.