Hiking for Hope

March 29, 2026

Author: Phyllis Root
Photographer: Kelly Povo

Saturday with 200,000 people we marched for justice in Saint Paul.
Sunday just the two of us hiked hillsides hoping for early spring wildflowers.

We’ve had enough warm weather and signs of spring that snow trillium, hepatica, and pasqueflower might be making their way into the sunshine, so we drive to Hastings Scientific and Natural Area (SNA) where a population of endangered snow trillium grows on a steep and rocky hillside.  We find small green triplets of leaves poking up and one flower working at opening, but the full blooming display is still at least a few days away.  Sharp-lobed hepatica leaves reveal furry little flower buds just emerging from the ground, and a scarlet elfcup makes a tiny splash of color among last year’s brown leaves. Sun shines, breezes blow. Somewhere a sandhill crane clacks through the sky. A glorious day to be chasing wildflowers, and we don’t want to stop.

From Hastings we head to Grey Cloud Dunes SNA near Cottage Grove  where on past visits we’ve seen pasqueflowers along a sandy trail.  This time, though, we can’t even find the dried clumps of last year’s leaves, but we do see the leaves of large beardtongue promising future flowers. Farther along the trail we come across the hopeful greening leaves of birdfoot violet.  

We’re still yearning for pasqueflowers, and our favorite pasqueflower hillside at River Terrace Prairie SNA has seldom disappointed. Flower chasing never happens in a straight line–we head back the way we came through Hastings to River Terrace Prairie outside of Cannon Falls and climb yet another hillside where we find  delicate  purple pasqueflowers opening to the sun. Furry little buds just emerging hint at more flowers to come. 

We still have hopes to see snow trillium blooming, so we make one last stop and hike down a hill.  As we come to where the trail turns upward to where we have seen snow trilliums in past years, a biker barrels down the hill alarmingly close to where the flowers grow.  After the biker has blown past, we hurry up the trail to find that clusters of snow trillium are indeed blooming, some with a bike tire tread so close in the dirt that the biker missed them by no more than an inch.

These past months have reminded us that life can be precarious. On a sunny Sunday we go looking for signs of spring, signs of hope, and we find them on the hillsides.  Marching for justice and hiking for hope remind us that we need to protect precious things–our rights, our neighbors, and the native wildflowers that sometimes grow perilously underfoot.

Love your neighbors, love our world, go out looking for wildflowers if, like us, it gives you hope and makes your heart happy.

And work for justice.  For all.