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Posted on April 11, 2025April 12, 2025 by sirloinofbeef

The Wind River Range is home to the highest point in Wyoming (Gannett Peak) and the largest glaciers in the US Rocky Mountains. The range also provides a wide expanse of habitat well-suited for grouse whortleberry. A look at grouse whortleberry observations within the Wind River Range that have been recorded in iNaturalist shows a distribution throughout the entirety of the range. My personal experience is that grouse whortleberry can be found in abundance throughout nearly all forested regions of this range.

You may not be familiar with iNaturalist; it’s an online platform for sharing biodiversity information. Users can use the app or website to record their observations of plants, animals and fungi and allows them to include photos, location data, and time of observation. This platform allows users to learn about different species and ecosystems, allows researchers and conservation organizations to study species distribution, migration patterns, and other important ecological data and fosters a community of nature enthusiasts who can share their knowledge and observations.

Users of iNaturalist have entered nearly 3,000 observations of grouse whortleberry, which begins to delineate the geographic distribution of this plant as shown below and on the iNaturalist website. As can be seen below, the range of the grouse whortleberry lies within the mountainous regions of western Canada and the US.

Which brings me to my small contribution to this effort. Last year during a backpacking trip in the Wind River Range, I was able to collect several grouse whortleberry specimens (more on that in the future) and now want to record the location of this activity. After signing on as a user in iNaturalist, I contributed my first three grouse whortleberry observations to the overall effort. These observations were made over four days of the the backpacking trip, which began at the Sweetwater trailhead in the southern portion of the range. The three observations are listed below, and include photos of the specimens that were observed.

  • https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/269060269
  • https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/269117984
  • https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/269280479

I hope to make additional observations in the future, but will have to wait for some of the snow to melt out in the mountains before any grouse whortleberry plants are visible.

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The Grouse Whortleberry

Welcome to the Whortleberry Project, a website dedicated to the study of the fascinating Vaccinium scoparium, commonly known as the grouse whortleberry.

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