Good morning everyone and welcome to SMGB, the Death Valley in Bloom Edition. It's Ed in Montana here, having returned from our second Winter season of campground hosting in Death Valley National Park, and wow was it a spectacular season!
Ten years ago last month, I escaped Montana’s dismal weather and drove to Death Valley for the first time to witness the Big Bloom of 2005. Wildflowers were everywhere. The entire southern third of the park (and Death Valley is an immense park; the largest park in the lower 48 states) was one continuous carpet bloom of Desert Gold. Seeing this amazing natural event started my love affair with Mojave Desert wildflowers, and I have been back every Spring since.
Big Blooms do not happen often, maybe once every ten years, and 2005 may have been the biggest bloom of them all. The wildflower bloom of 2015 was not as big as 2005, but it was the biggest display of wildflowers in the ten years since the Big Bloom of 2005.
Join me at our little travel trailer in the desert below the orange squiggle for more on desert wildflowers.
Mrs. Ed (the Expedition Photographer), the Giant Chocolate Monster Puppy and myself arrived at Mesquite Springs Campground in northern Death Valley National Park on October 22 of 2014. You could tell right off that the desert had received some Summer rains, by the green healthy look of the Creosote Bush and the blooming Rabbit Brush. The California deserts, unlike the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and Mexico does not receive a regular late Summer monsoon, so any hot season rain is greatly appreciated. Several plants were blooming as a result of the August rains.
Butterflies flock to the blooming Rabbitbrush in November.
Coyote Melons had already set their softball sized fruit.
The huge blossoms of Sacred Datura were found along the road through Grapevine Canyon.
After a very busy and hectic November at the campground, the Winter rains began. Our weather station recorded nearly 2 inches of rain total during the month of the December including this 0.4 inch downpour one morning, which was followed by another half an inch at 11:30 that night in less than 30 minutes. We woke up to six inches of mud from the flash flood that had raged through the campground as we slept!
The Davis Weather Station recorded high winds and 0.40 inches of rain during the first part of the storm.
The paved roads in the upper campground were slick with mud.
The 9,000 foot peak of Tin Mountain just west of the campground was covered with fresh snow.
Just before New Year’s Day, we transferred from our remote and beautiful campsite at Mesquite Springs sixty miles south to the much larger but still beautiful Texas Spring Campground, which is one half mile uphill and east of Park Headquarters at Furnace Creek. A new adventure had begun.
Looking west over the upper loop at Texas Spring Campground.
Being near park headquarters (and what passes for civilization in this enormous wild park) gave us many new outdoor opportunities. Mrs. Ed went on the pre-count for the Audubon Christmas Bird Count and took these photos of Tundra Swans, one of the few times these birds have ever been documented visiting the park.
Tundra Swans rising with the Panamint Mountains in the background.
Tundra Swans against the blue sky over the Furnace Creek sewage lagoons
Snow and rain storms continued passed over the valley sporadically through the Winter months, making us very optimistic about as great Spring wildflower season.
Thunderstorm above the Grapevine Mountains.
By the end of January the cool wet Winter weather suddenly changed. The daily high temperatures, which had been in the 60s F, suddenly spiked to the mid 80s F, and stayed there for three weeks. Sometimes, the nightly “lows” were 72 degrees F! That should have been the high temp! The near continuous desert breeze went away as well, leaving the air dry, warm, and absolutely still.
The sudden heat wave spurred the wildflowers to bloom at least two to three weeks earlier than they normally would have. Some of the very first were roadside blooms. Roads channel extra rainfall along their margins, and the pavement adds extra heat during the daytime and nighttime to encourage early plant growth.
Golden Evening Primrose along the Badwater Road east of Jubilee Pass.
The tiny delicate blooms of Fremont Phacelia.
Mojave Gold Poppies in a carpet bloom east of Jubilie Pass.
Watching the wildflowers develop over a period of several months, rather than just visiting the area for a few days, presented quite a few challenges. Sure there were new species I had never seen bloom before. But even the same species of wildflower could look almost completely different, depending on how much rain each plant received. The small versions of these primroses were very common. The giant primrose was growing below a pour over on the Scotty’s Castle Road, where it had flash flooded during the December storms.
A small Golden Evening Primrose about three inches high.
A giant Golden Evening Primrose about three feet high.
Toward the end of February, many of the common wildflowers had bloomed at lower elevations and the bloom had begun moving upslope.
Desert Gold, a member of the sunflower family, was the most common wildflower on the valley floor.
Desert Five Spots, normally very small, could get very large.
Sand Verbena lasted only a week or two before being devoured by Hawk Moth Caterpillars.
March blew in with a brief snowstorm at higher elevations and more rain in the valley. This was the last significant moisture before the temperatures spiked upward again in mid-month setting a record of 106 degrees F one day. A week of ultra high temps in the 90s at the end of March brought the blooms on the valley floor to their end. But before April arrived, wildflowers were everywhere!
Snow on the Funeral Mountains above 3,000 feet.
If you took the time to look among the common wildflowers, you could find quite few more rare blooms. One day we counted thirty different species alone!
Spanish Needles. We only saw a few of these blooms.
Spiny Herb with tiny yellow flowers.
Velvet Turtleback, which we had only seen bloom twice before.
The tiny flowers of Rattlesnake Weed, or White Margin Sandmat.
The showy but foul smelling Rock Nettle Bush.
Pima Rhatany, an uncommon flowering shrub.
And of course there were the show stopping stunningly beautiful examples of the more common wildflowers.
Caltha Leafed Phacelia.
More Desert Five Spots.
Beavertail Cactus.
By the second week of March wildflowers were everywhere. We saw carpet blooms of flowers that I had never seen or read of having carpet blooms. The brown gravels fans around Furnace Creek, some of the most hostile environments on Earth for living things, burst into color with Desert Gold Sunflowers, weeks after many people had thought the bloom had already burned out. Carpet blooms of one wildflower replaced carpet blooms of another wildflower in the same place, an event I had never seen before.
Gravel fan one mile north of Furnace Creek ablaze with Desert Gold.
A carpet bloom of Goldfields, east of Jubilee Pass.
Goldfields close up.
A carpet bloom of Desert Dandelions having replaced a carpet bloom of Checkered Fiddlenecks along the Dantes View Road.
A carpet bloom of Fremont Pinchusions on the Greenwater Valley Road.
The basalt lava fields at Ashford Mills bloomed with Desert Gold.
A carpet bloom of Bigelow's Coreopsis along the Greenwater Valley Road.
Desert Gold below the Black Mountains.
A huge carpet bloom of Desert Gold tracking the mid-day sun.
The Expedition Photographer after a hard day photographing wildflowers along the Harry Wade Road.
A spectacular wildflower season! I only hope that we will be able to see a few more of these incredible natural events in future, if climate change doesn't fry the Southwest!