I knew something was deeply wrong when I found a lively ladybug on a warm, February morning while hiking the valley with Eric.
I found it crawling on a prematurely greening plant, just off the trail. I was surprised, but only briefly. While ladybugs in Colorado don’t tend to emerge from their winter dens until late spring and early summer when the aphids come out, 2026 began with a warm January, and then an even warmer February. Spring seemed to be about six weeks early, and the ladybugs were responding to that strange warmth.
That same day, I was walking to class on campus when I noticed a few deciduous trees were beginning to green up with leafbuds. I stared at those trees, perplexed, and reached up to feel one of the budding branches. Sure enough, the little green pods were fairly soft, and would soon give way to leaves.
Still, I hoped that it was just a fluke. Surely, March would bury us in snow after a virtually snowless winter.
Spoiler alert: it did not.
Neither did April, or May. In fact, by the middle of May, temperatures were already soaring into the 80s and 90s on a regular basis, dashing my hopes of getting any sort of actual snow.
When summer officially settled in, it came with scorching heat, mainly dry afternoons, and the occasional violent, dry thunderstorm. A severe drought settled in as reservoirs were drained, rivers became creeks, and creeks became bone dry. Mountain towns desperately brought in air conditioners and begged tourists to obey the fire bans, all while the cities banned lawn watering and encouraged xeriscaping.
Again, I hoped against all logic and reasoning that this summer would just be an outlier; that we’d eventually stop breaking records every week as summer turned to fall.
But, it seems like fall has yet to come, despite it now being November.
While the weather has finally begun to trend cooler, it is still nowhere near a hard freeze yet, let alone cold enough to make snow. Also, because it was such a hot, dry summer, now that the temperatures have cooled down and the land’s begun to receive more water, grasses and wildflowers have been springing up as though it was… well… spring. And immediately after the sun begins beating down on the foliage, the landscape comes to life with bees, butterflies, and even newborn grasshoppers.
Again, just like spring… in late October and now November.
This time last year, it wasn’t like this, and Eric and I have literally thousands of pictures to prove it. Prior to Eric’s heart attack- which is also before I began to drag him along on my hikes-, I have over two years’ worth in pictures that show just how much has changed, climate-wise, in recent years.
Looking back on those pictures now, and comparing them to what I’ve seen in just the last week, not to mention the last month, fills me with a deep-seated dread and anxiety that I cannot shake.
They don’t just show gradual, seasonal changes, either. I’ve seen some crazy shit this year (2026) that I wouldn’t have even considered to be possible two years ago.
Take one of my favorite wildflowers: the Indian Paintbrush, AKA the Wyoming Paintbrush. It’s a bright orange-to-red flower native to the west that, in a normal year, rises up from the ground mid-spring and withers away by midsummer. For as long as I’ve lived in Ken Caryl and had access to the hiking trails, I’ve learned to look for a bright vermillion heads of the paintbrush between May and early August. By late August, the red heads heads will have withered away, leaving the narrow, mint-green leaves to wither, too. However, even when the paintbrush withers, its roots stay alive, ready to pop up when spring comes around.
Except, this year, the paintbrush decided that springtime started in mid October, after they already bloomed earlier this year. Scarier still, it wasn’t alone.
Other springtime flowers, from Scarlet Globmallow (AKA Cowboy’s Delight) to Sulfur Buckwheat, have also been sprouting from the earth this fall, attracting butterflies and bees still warmed by the sun. Of course, some flowers, such as the prairie aster and the rabbitbrush will bloom in late August through October, so not everything is completely off.
But, the fact that I found more Indian Paintbrush in the valley in October than I did in May is… unsettling, to say the least.
Wildflowers don’t just sprout up from the ground within a few days when the weather is warm and wet. They require weeks of warm, wet, springlike weather to emerge from the soil, because blooming and producing pollen and seeds takes a lot of energy, and pollen can’t spread without the aid of bees, butterflies, beatles, and hummingbirds.
In other words, the wildflowers are warning us of something.
As is the disappearance of Saint Mary’s Glacier, which I predicted would happen after I saw what was left of it in July of this year. And the massive wildfires followed by record-breaking flooding plaguing southern Colorado. And the terrible, choking air quality of the Denver area held down by high pressure system after high pressure system. And the sudden thunderstorm that chased Eric and I out of the valley this morning (November 2nd), despite no such weather being in the forecast or on radar when we got to the trailhead.
Springtime wildflowers coming up in the fall may look harmless and pretty on the surface. But to me, they look like a curious little bear cub coming up to say hello. Why? Because I know mama bear ain’t far behind, and she will not be very cute or cuddly. The consequences of human-caused climate change won’t be so pretty either.
