Mojave in Bloom: A rare glimpse into an unusually lush desert
We were somewhere on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. But this time, the drugs weren’t the Hunter S. Thompson variety. We were intoxicated by the smell and sight of stunningly beautiful wildflowers blanketing valleys and hillsides as far as the eye could see.
After reading reports of unprecedented wildflower blooms in the Mojave Desert, I was on truth-seeking mission. Was this just American-style hype or was this really the best desert wildflower bloom in recorded history?
On the first official day of spring, I loaded up the wagon and headed south from Bellingham, picking up my companions along the way in Oregon and Nevada. Thirty-eight hours, 10 CDs, six beers, and one speeding ticket later we found ourselves in the great white heart of the Mojave: Death Valley.
Heavy winter rains have brought an early spring to this normally very dry desert in southern California. The whopping six inches of rain Death Valley received in the first three months of 2005 were triple what it normally receives over the course of the whole year. These kinds of rains only happen on average every fifty years. Maybe even once in a lifetime.
It all seemed like a strange and never-ending dream of sorts. The Panamint and Funeral Mountain ranges ran north-to-south enveloping Death Valley and flushing large pulses of fresh water through its canyons. Large salt flats on the valley floor had turned into vast saline lakes. Alluvial fans glowed a shocking shade of green. Golden, fragrant fields of desert sunflowers (Geraea canescens) flowed like rivers down mountainsides. The lower elevations were a kaleidoscope of wildflower shapes and colors smiling at you from almost every crack and crevice: Notch-Leaved Phacelia (Phacelia crenulata), fuzzy Death Valley sage with deep purple flowers (Salvia funerea), glowing orange mallows (Sphaeralcea ambigua), the seductive desert five spot (Eremalche rotundifolia), and scented forget-me-nots (Cryptantha utahensis).
In our trancelike state, we continued to drift south about 70 miles, and once again were enchanted by the delicate and sensuous Kelso sand dunes in the Mojave National Preserve. There we found the dune evening primrose (Oenothera deltoides), desert Canterbury bells (Phacelia campanularia), flowering beavertail cactus (Opuntia basilaris) and showy wild rhubarb (Rumex hymenosepalus). In the higher elevations of the preserve, near Cima Dome, we walked through the largest and densest stand of Joshua Trees in the world. At 5,000 feet elevation, this wind-battered, twisted Yucca brevifolia forest was dappled with an understory of delicate, brightly colored flowers such as the pink phlox (phlox stansburyi) and desert Indian paintbrush (Castilleja angustifolia). Even with another month in the area, we would not see all the flowers there are to see. The Mojave desert is home to over 1,000 species of flowering plants.
All this makes North America’s largest reptile very happy. The desert tortoise, a so-called indicator species of the Mojave desert, emerges in March from his deep burrow and long winter sleep to feast on the new wealth of tender grasses and flowers. He’s in for a treat this year. And that’s good because he needs all the help he can get. Tortoises have been declining so sharply that they were listed as “threatened” by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1989. The tortoise’s decline represents the whole spectrum of what has gone wrong in the desert: too many roads, overgrazing, collection, visitation, shooting, military maneuvering, and off-road vehicle use. Some call the desert tortoise “the spotted owl of the desert” because it has managed to slow development in the fastest growing city in the United States: Las Vegas. I find it ironic that both owls and tortoises are symbols of wisdom in our culture yet they are both in serious decline in this country.
This is where the dream ends. I wake up back at home pondering the captivating beauty, the stark contrasts of life and death, and the struggle for survival I had just experienced. It was indeed the best wildflower bloom I have ever witnessed in my short thirty-three years on this planet. These photos are my only evidence that indeed it really did happen.
After reading reports of unprecedented wildflower blooms in the Mojave Desert, I was on truth-seeking mission. Was this just American-style hype or was this really the best desert wildflower bloom in recorded history?
On the first official day of spring, I loaded up the wagon and headed south from Bellingham, picking up my companions along the way in Oregon and Nevada. Thirty-eight hours, 10 CDs, six beers, and one speeding ticket later we found ourselves in the great white heart of the Mojave: Death Valley.
Heavy winter rains have brought an early spring to this normally very dry desert in southern California. The whopping six inches of rain Death Valley received in the first three months of 2005 were triple what it normally receives over the course of the whole year. These kinds of rains only happen on average every fifty years. Maybe even once in a lifetime.
It all seemed like a strange and never-ending dream of sorts. The Panamint and Funeral Mountain ranges ran north-to-south enveloping Death Valley and flushing large pulses of fresh water through its canyons. Large salt flats on the valley floor had turned into vast saline lakes. Alluvial fans glowed a shocking shade of green. Golden, fragrant fields of desert sunflowers (Geraea canescens) flowed like rivers down mountainsides. The lower elevations were a kaleidoscope of wildflower shapes and colors smiling at you from almost every crack and crevice: Notch-Leaved Phacelia (Phacelia crenulata), fuzzy Death Valley sage with deep purple flowers (Salvia funerea), glowing orange mallows (Sphaeralcea ambigua), the seductive desert five spot (Eremalche rotundifolia), and scented forget-me-nots (Cryptantha utahensis).
In our trancelike state, we continued to drift south about 70 miles, and once again were enchanted by the delicate and sensuous Kelso sand dunes in the Mojave National Preserve. There we found the dune evening primrose (Oenothera deltoides), desert Canterbury bells (Phacelia campanularia), flowering beavertail cactus (Opuntia basilaris) and showy wild rhubarb (Rumex hymenosepalus). In the higher elevations of the preserve, near Cima Dome, we walked through the largest and densest stand of Joshua Trees in the world. At 5,000 feet elevation, this wind-battered, twisted Yucca brevifolia forest was dappled with an understory of delicate, brightly colored flowers such as the pink phlox (phlox stansburyi) and desert Indian paintbrush (Castilleja angustifolia). Even with another month in the area, we would not see all the flowers there are to see. The Mojave desert is home to over 1,000 species of flowering plants.
All this makes North America’s largest reptile very happy. The desert tortoise, a so-called indicator species of the Mojave desert, emerges in March from his deep burrow and long winter sleep to feast on the new wealth of tender grasses and flowers. He’s in for a treat this year. And that’s good because he needs all the help he can get. Tortoises have been declining so sharply that they were listed as “threatened” by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1989. The tortoise’s decline represents the whole spectrum of what has gone wrong in the desert: too many roads, overgrazing, collection, visitation, shooting, military maneuvering, and off-road vehicle use. Some call the desert tortoise “the spotted owl of the desert” because it has managed to slow development in the fastest growing city in the United States: Las Vegas. I find it ironic that both owls and tortoises are symbols of wisdom in our culture yet they are both in serious decline in this country.
This is where the dream ends. I wake up back at home pondering the captivating beauty, the stark contrasts of life and death, and the struggle for survival I had just experienced. It was indeed the best wildflower bloom I have ever witnessed in my short thirty-three years on this planet. These photos are my only evidence that indeed it really did happen.
posted by Jasmine Minbashian at 1:34 PM
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