When I think Easter I think of springtime and flowers, even though in most of the places I’ve lived those flowers are still a couple of months away. They’re not this year, though, as I’m in the California desert, chasing the wildflowers. And one of my favorite desert wildflowers is the Ajo Lily, also known as the Desert Lily.
Arroyo del Salado campground
When it comes to lilies, I really lucked out this year. I’ve been spending a lot of time this past month in Anza Borrego State Park, staying in the Arroyo del Salado primitive campground. And Arroyo del Salado has been Desert Lily Central.
A few lilies in one of my campsites in Arroyo del Salado
I thought I’d share a few of those lilies with you, being that it’s Easter and all.
Desert Lilies grow and change, evolving over time.
I think one of the reasons Desert Lilies are a favorite is that each plant is so unique, such an individual. That’s not the case with all wildflowers. Sand Verbena, for instance. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Sand Verbena, one of the sweetest scented flowers in the desert. But one patch of sand verbena does not look that different from another. Lilies are different.
Sand Verbena flowers are just not as unique as Desert Lilies!
Maybe it’s because desert lilies do not grow as thickly as some other desert wildflowers. Like me, these plants need their space! They’re not “city” flowers, they avoid the crowds. They prefer room to grow and express their individuality.
They’re not antisocial, they just don’t want to be crowded!
Like people, they grow and change over time, as all their blossoms don’t bloom at once. They stretch it out and take their time. It’s fun to watch each individual plant evolve.
Desert Lilies in Arroyo del Salado
The desert lilies aren’t the only wildflowers blooming in Anza Borrego. I’ve been spending my time in Anza Borrego because, during March, more desert wildflowers were blooming there than anywhere else.
Wildflowers on Henderson Canyon Road, Anza Borrego State Park
Within the last few days, though, some of the other wildflower hotspots, like the south end of Joshua Tree National Park, have finally started putting on a show. Chia, Desert Dandelions and Mexican Poppies are filling the fields. Look in the washes for nice displays of Canterbury Bells and Chuparosa. Further north in Wiilson Canyon Wooly Daisies, Tickseed and Bladderpod are lighting up the landscape in gold.
Canterbury Bells in Joshua Tree National Park
I’m looking forward to a very colorful April as I slowly make my way back North, following the flowers. But for right now, spending Easter with the Desert Lilies of Anza Borrego is a perfect place to be!
How do warm colors make you feel? For me, they bring a smile to my face, excitement and happiness. I often use a warming filter on my camera because I like my colors a little warmer in most instances. This may come as no surprise to you, as I scurry south every winter to get more of the warmth! My favorite time to do photography is the late afternoon and early evening. It’s not only that I’m too lazy to get up early, I prefer the warm light!
Bladderpod in Joshua Tree National Park
The desert is full of warm colors. Even in the wintertime, you can find warm colors in the sunsets, the red rock, even the birds. I’ve been seeing a lot of those warm colors this past week.
Even the birds have warm colors in the desert.
As for warm wildflower colors, not so much, but there are a few.
Red rock is a warm color you can always find in the desert.
The warmest color in Saguaro National Park’s foliage is the yellow fruits from last year’s barrel cactus bloom.
The warmest color in Saguaro National Park this week
But there is one flower blooming in Saguaro, the delicate pink Fairy Duster.
Fairy Duster
Organ Pipe was greener. It looks to be a good bloom there in a couple of weeks. Right now Ocotillo is what’s blooming.
Ocotillo is blooming in Organ Pipe.
Here’s a closer look at those beautiful warm red flowers.
Ocotillo blooms
There was a carpet of green from the Sonoran into California, giving me high hopes for a good flower season in a couple of weeks. But right now the only thing blooming in that vast expanse was Brittlebush.
Brittlebush has started to bloom throughout the deserts.
I was underwhelmed and a bit disappointed when I got to Joshua Tree National Park. I had expected more.
Bladderpod
Even the Brittlebush was sparse. There were a couple of new flowers blooming, Bladderpod and Chuparosa. These are both perennial bushes, as are Fairy Dusters, Brittlebush and Ocotillo. Annual flowers are practically non-existent still.
Chuparosa
I did find a few Canterbury Bells in Joshua Tree, but that was it. The carpet of green I’d noticed in the Sonoran desert was missing here. By this time of year, there should have been a haze of fuzzy green, the seedlings of the annuals, covering the roadsides. I don’t know if the southern part of Joshua Tree missed the storms, or if it’s been too cold, but don’t expect a big bloom in Joshua Tree this spring. Very little is even sprouting there now.
Perennials like Brittlebush are doing well.
A little bit of good news, though. Reports from Anza Borrego indicate that it should be a good wildflower season there. It’s already starting, especially the Sand Verbena, the sweetest-smelling flower in the desert. I’ve seen fields full of them here in the Palm Springs area, too.
Not really a warm color, but Sand Verbena is what’s blooming!
The latest reports I’ve found from Death Valley are a couple of weeks old, but state that sprouts are coming up, so I’m hopeful. I will be visiting both Anza Borrego and Death Valley next week and will have a better idea then of what this season will be like.
Will the sand dunes be the only warm colors in Death Valley when I get there?
So it looks like the flowers may get going a little late – March will probably be the best month to see the desert bloom this year. Until then, enjoy the warm colors wherever you are, wherever you find them – in the rocks, in the sunset – but keep your eyes open, warm colors in the flowers are coming soon!
Red rocks in Organ Pipe National Park
Thank you, Egidio, for bringing us this week’s Lens-Artists Photography Challenge, Warm Colors.
Well, it’s almost Christmas and Winter Solstice is only a few days away. Kind of reminds me of a Dar Williams song, “Christians and the Pagans”. (Give it a listen) There’s a line in that song, “And you find magic from your God, and we find magic everywhere, ”
I’m a pagan at heart, it’s nearly Winter Solstice, and I do find magic everywhere, especially in the natural world. So here are a few of the places and things I find magical.
Mountains
A magical alpine landscape
I’ve always been a mountain girl, and it’s not only the big peaks that are magical. I’m in love with the alpine, the land above treeline. Not just the big views, either, but every little detail. Especially the little details. There’s another Lilliputian world there if you look closely, and it’s a magical place.
There’s a whole other world beneath your feet!
.I used to play a game with my visitors when I did Discovery Hikes as a ranger in Denali. I would give them circles of string, about six inches in diameter, and have them enclose a patch of alpine tundra. I would ask them to count all the living species they could find in their circle. Then I would hand out magnifying glasses and have them count again. They always found more the second time around, with that closer look!
Water
Waterfalls are magical. Do you see the face in the rocks to the right of the falls?
Water is life. Literally. Without water, there is no life. It’s a magical substance. And there’s this weird thing that happens occasionally when I photograph waterfalls. Although I don’t see it when I’m making the shot, I will sometimes find a face in the photo (the spirit of the waterfall?) when I open it up to process. That’s what happened in this image. Can you see the face? It’s magical.
Trees
Redwoods are amazing trees.
There are a lot of magical trees out there. Have you ever meditated with a redwood? Or wandered through the fairyland of a temperate rainforest, like you might find in the Pacific Northwest?
Olympic National Park has some magical forests.
One of the most magical kinds of forests I’ve ever seen are the Madrone/Manzanita woodlands of Oregon’s Siskiyou Mountains, with trees that look like women, decorated with delicate lichens and moss. Magical.
Manzanita in the Cathedral Hills in Grants Pass, Oregon.
Tidepools
Tide pools on Bandon Beach
Tide pools are magical places. Especially to me. I’ve been on a mission to find good tide pools, and I’m not always successful. Timing is everything. If you don’t have a real low tide, forget it. But I got lucky last spring, twice; once at Bandon, my favorite spot on the whole Oregon Coast, and then at Cape Perpetua. I scored an awesome campsite with great wildflowers at Cape Perpetua, too.
Sea Stars are making a comeback!
One of the most miraculous discoveries in my successful tidepooling this spring was that sea stars are coming back! Decimated by sea star wasting disease, it’s been years since there was a healthy starfish population anywhere on the Pacific Coast, but there were a lot of them in Oregon this spring. Brings joy to my heart
Desert
Arches are ephemeral.
Arches and natural bridges are pretty magical, too. I listed them under desert to go with my photo, but you can also find them on the coast, products of erosion, sculpted by the waves. In the desert it’s the wind doing the carving for an arch, and water for the natural bridges.
These nature sculptures are ephemeral. beings. You never know how long they will last. The arch in this photo, Shakespeare Arch, is already gone, collapsing a couple of years ago. I’m glad I saw it when I did because it was a beauty, now gone forever.
Mosaic Canyon in Death Valley
Another magical product of erosion are slot canyons. All canyons are magical, never knowing but eagerly anticipating what’s around the next bend as you hike up one. Slots just bring the excitement up a notch, with the beauty of their polished walls and the way they have of drawing you in, deeper and deeper.
Flowers in the desert can be magical.
A good wildflower season in the desert is definitely magical. To see a landscape that is pretty bleak most of the time, nothing but dirt and rocks, transform into a veritable garden of delight, completely drenched with flowers – well, it’s got to be seen to be believed. Maybe we’ll get lucky this year. Fingers crossed.
It’s not only the quantity of flowers that blows me away, it’s the incredible variety.
Home
Last, but not least, I live in a magical place. When I first came to McCarthy, I felt like I’d discovered Never Never Land. It was a place where you never had to grow up, unique, like nowhere else in the world. That was before social media, before McCarthy was discovered by the rest of the world.
Perhaps it’s not quite so magical now, now that it is on the map. With Instagram, there are no longer any best kept secret magical places. But I’ll bet it’s still pretty magic to people who have never been there before, who are freshly discovering it. And after all, it’s the people who play the largest part in making any place magical, and McCarthy is still filled with amazing, kind, beautiful people, people who keep the magic alive.
McCarthy is a magical place.
Thanks to Ann-Christine of Leya for this week’s Lens-Artist’s Photography Challenge, Magical.
What does spring mean to me? That’s the question posed by Sofia of Photographias in this week’s Lens-Artists Photography Challenge. For me, spring equals two things: road tripping and wildflowers.
Ajo Lilies in Anza Borrego State Park
This way of celebrating spring started for me when I used to work winters as a ranger in Death Valley National Park. There, I fell in love with the desert spring bloom. You would not think a land that averaged less than 2 inches of rain a year would have many wildflowers. Surprisingly though, in more years than not, it does. Due to the great diversity of landscapes and elevations, even in a dry year you can find some wildflowers somewhere.
Wildflowers in Death Valley’s Saline Valley
It can be one of the most astounding natural events you’ll ever witness in a good year. During a Superbloom, the flowers start in January and just keep coming. Dry, rocky, barren land is suddenly completely carpeted with color. The variety is phenomenal. They are so thick on the ground that you can hardly take a step without crushing a half dozen blooms. Once I saw a real superbloom, I never wanted to miss another.
Superbloom in Joshua Tree
So I started following the bloom. I would spend a lot of time in February and March traveling between my two favorite desert wildflower spots, Death Valley and Anza-Borrego State Park, and spending a few days at Joshua Tree National Park along the way.
The wildflowers should be amazing in Carrizo Plain by mid-April.
Slowly starting my trip back home to Alaska in early April, I would try to visit Carrizo Plain National Monument. In a good year, this is the best place ever to see wildflowers. Despite the hype that is out there, this year is not a superbloom year. For that, you need a good soaker storm in the fall to get the seeds going. California did not receive all that rain until January. Carrizo Plain is starting to get some color but no big displays yet. I think it could be fantastic in a couple more weeks, though, as more and more flowers germinated in January bloom.
Wildflowers could be incredible in the Sierra Nevada foothills, too.
Traveling north, I edge along the western foothills of the Sierra and make a fly-by visit to Yosemite’s waterfalls, another spring phenomenon. I think the Sierra foothills are where the real superbloom will happen this spring.
Redwood Sorrel
I would continue north through the Redwood Sorrel and Trilliums of northern California to my last big spring wildflower extravaganza, in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon. Since there were very few wildflowers blooming further north, I would beeline home from there, going back into winter along the way.
Arrowleaf Balsamroot in the Siskiyou Mountains
This year is a little different. I have spent the entire winter in one spot, northern Washington’s Orcas Island. I’ve kept my carbon footprint low, only using two tanks of gas through the entire winter.
Red Warrior
But that’s about to change. Although there are domestic flowers beginning to bloom here now – crocuses, hellebore, fruit trees – there are no wildflowers. As I said last week, domestic flowers don’t thrill me. I need a wildflower fix before I head back into winter.
Fawn Lily
So starting April 2, I’m road tripping down to the closest place where I can see good wildflowers, the Siskiyous in southern Oregon. I’m in love with the trees of that region also, so I am really looking forward to it. I’ll visit a few friends and a few beaches along the way down, too.
Shooting Stars
When I start heading home from there, I may detour into the southern Cascades for a day or two in search of mossy waterfalls to photograph. It all depends on how far spring has progressed by then.
I’ll be looking for waterfalls, too.
As I move north of the border, it’s time to start looking for spring wildlife instead of spring flowers. If I take the AlCan Highway, I may be rewarded by sightings of Woodland Caribou and the rare Stone Sheep. I will certainly see Wood Bison on that route. If I take the Cassiar, I will probably catch a glimpse of a bear or two.
Stone Sheep
By the time I reach the Yukon, I will have traveled back into winter. Well, it will look a bit like winter anyhow. Actually, it will be that in-between season, known in the Northland as Breakup.
It’s still winter in the Yukon in April.
Breakup is a rough time to try to travel off the paved roads. The snow is soft and soggy and will collapse and suck you in. It’s slick and icy in the morning from all the melted water. Wherever it’s not snowy, it’s muddy. The rivers, no longer frozen, are running full, and full of ice. Springtime in Alaska.
But there are signs of Breakup.
There’s a third thing spring means to me. Home. It won’t be long before I’m home, back in McCarthy, trying to figure out how to negotiate the lake in my ATV trail and the downed trees on my walking path. But that’s another story for another time. Right now it’s spring!
North meets South annually in my life. I migrate. As beautiful as Alaska is in the winter, like the birds and the whales, I prefer to head for warmer climes when the days get shorter.
In the following pairs of flowers, can you tell which is North and which is South?
For years I worked in Death Valley National Park in the winter. People used to tell me, “Wow, you go from one extreme to the other! But I didn’t see it that way.
Death Valley or Denali?
Sure, there are big differences. In some years I was moving from a park that contained the highest point in North America, Denali, to a park that held the lowest point, the Badwater Basin. But I was actually avoiding the extremes through my travels- escaping the cold of winter in Alaska and dodging the heat of summer in Death Valley.
Plants in both places use many of the same strategies to survive.
The predominant colors were different, it’s true – shades of green in Denali and shades of brown in the desert. But the landscapes were surprisingly similar.
That’s why they look so similar.
In fact, there were far more similarities than there were differences. North meets South, sharing many of the same attributes. When I first applied for a job in Death Valley, an Alaskan friend told me that I’d find it more like home than anywhere else in the lower 48. He was right.
The landscapes aren’t all that different.
Immense, open panoramas abound in both. The vastness cannot be described, it needs to be experienced. They are landscapes that make you aware of your own insignificance. Death Valley is the largest park in the contiguous United States. Denali is even bigger. In most places, these landscapes seem endless because there are few to no trees. When I worked in Denali, I lived at the Toklat Road Camp, 50 miles into the park. I was surrounded by alpine tundra, not trees.
They’re both vast.
There are parallels in many of the geological features. Both contain rugged mountain ranges divided by wide valleys. Alluvial fans and glacial outwash plains look surprisingly similar. The raw, naked geology is exciting. The stories that the rocks tell are so much easier to understand in barren landscapes like these.
A nameless canyon in the Black Mountains
One aspect that delights me is that both parks are filled with countless nameless canyons to explore. These landscapes invite you to wander.
A nameless canyon on Polychrome Mountain
Sometimes you find similar treasures as you explore these canyons. Did these horns come from Death Valley or Denali?
Denali or Death Valley?
One way North meets South is through the commonalities of their wildflowers. Both Denali and Death Valley can have phenomenal flower seasons. And plants in both parks use similar adaptations to survive in their harsh environments.
Both parks host an incredible variety of wildflower species.
Both Denali and Death Valley pose extremely difficult challenges for the plants and animals that live there. Although one place is scorching hot and the other bitterly cold, they share an element that amplifies the effects of both extremes – wind.
They’re not all belly flowers!
In both places, the growing season is short but intense. In both, you’ll also find that a lot of flowers grow low to the ground. Belly flowers. They often grow closely in mounds or in mats covering the ground, working together to avoid the drying effects of the relentless wind.
Growing low to the ground in a mound can protect the flowers from wind and conserve water.
Many plants in both places are covered with fine hairs, which keep Denali’s flowers a little warmer and protect Death Valley’s from the harsh sun.
Denali or Death Valley?
The biggest draw for me personally is that both Denali and Death Valley are incredibly wild, something I’m aching for on tame, benevolent Orcas Island this winter. There is something about the harshness of those landscapes that speaks to my soul. And of course, they’re also both awe-inspiringly beautiful.
This week I’d like to share with you all some of my favorite places, ones I will miss this winter as I practice The Middle Way on Orcas Island. This week’s Lens-Artist’s Photo Challenge is Home Sweet Home. Tina Schell of Travels and Trifles asks us, ” If a foreigner were to spend a week or a month traveling your home country with you, where would you take them? What sights would you tell them to be sure to see? Where have you found some of your own favorite images? What is it you truly love about where you live, or places you’ve seen in your home country? ”
First snow in the Colorado mountains
Well, they would need at LEAST a month for all MY favorite places. Although I grew up in Colorado and now live in Alaska, I feel at home throughout the West. I’ll start with Colorado. I was raised in Colorado, and lived there for many, many years after I went out on my own. It’s probably where I’ll end up when I get too old to live deep in the wilderness in Alaska. My family is there. Colorado is always close to my heart.
Petrified Forest National Park
Although I’m at home throughout the West, I do have a few favorite places that I try to visit whenever I have the chance. One is the Colorado Plateau. This region covers big chunks of 4 different states: Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. I can’t narrow my favorite down to just one or two places in this area, it’s all so amazing. My advice to a foreign visitor might be to check out a few places that are not as well-known as iconic parks like Arches and Zion. Although I love them, too, they ARE getting loved to death and it might be good to try to spread that impact out a little. Lesser-known places such as Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Petrified Forest National Park contain wonders, too.
Grosvenor Arch in Grand Staircase-Escalante
Another favorite place is Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico. This is the best place I’ve ever been for birds. It is the winter home for vast flocks of Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes. Over 340 different species of birds live there. It is an incredible place to observe wildlife.
Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge
I spent 8 winters working as a ranger in Death Valley National Park. It is another desert that has captured my heart. The great thing about Death Valley is that because the altitude on the valley floor is so low (the lowest elevation in North America), the nights are seldom cold, even during the deepest darkest months of winter. Makes for great camping, and the rattlesnakes sleep in the winter! It’s an incredibly diverse park, with elevations ranging from below sea level to over 11,000 feet.
I did a little playing with LightRoom on this image. It was a daytime image and the background of bare dirt desert ground was a bit meh so I darkened it until it resembled the night sky, and tried to give a nighttime feel to the dunes, too. Since Death Valley is famed as a night sky park, and since one of my favorite things to do is to walk through the sand dunes under the full moon, I wanted to capture the feel of that experience in this image.
I love to hike the sand dunes in the moonlight.
And then there’s the bloom. If there is rain in the desert, and if it is timed right, the wildflowers will rock your world. If it seems like it might be a good year for the flowers, I try to make a circuit that starts near the Mexican border in Anza-Borrego State Park, moving through Joshua Tree and Mojave National Preserve until I end up in Death Valley.
Love those desert wildflowers!
Further west on the California coast you will find another great wildlife phenomenon, the elephant seals at Piedras Blancas near San Simeon. Although you can find a few seals there at any time of year, December through February are the best months. Thousands of seals converge on the beaches, with the big strange-looking bulls battling it out for the right to own a piece of the beach, and all the females on it. The cows are birthing and raising their babies then, too. It’s an extraordinary spot to witness wildlife drama, so close you don’t even need binoculars to see it.
Sex on the Beach
From the campground at San Simeon I can walk to the beach and see some fantastic bird action on the sea stack that looms just offshore there. It’s an awesome place to catch the sunset.
Farther north along the California coast is Mendocino County. It’s my favorite part of the California Coast. I think the scenery is even more dramatic than Big Sur, and without the crowds. It’s got big trees, too.
The beaches in Mendo are wild and uncrowded.
Speaking of big trees, I’ve really fallen in love with the tallest trees in the world, the redwoods, over the last few years.
Tall Trees
Sometimes I go straight up the coast into Oregon. Other times I head for the Siskiyou country near Grants Pass and Williams. The trees there are incredibly graceful and beautiful and it’s my last chance to see wildflowers as I head north.
Oregon has some incredible trees!
But no matter which way I go, I try to hit the coast at Bandon. It is so much fun to shoot the sea stacks there!
Sea stacks at Bandon
The Olympic Peninsula is my next favorite place. The old-growth forests redefine green and the wild beaches are phenomenal.
Ferns and feathers
And then there’s Alaska. It’s where my heart is, my community, my job, my life. My first love in Alaska was Denali National Park and I try to go there whenever I get a chance.
I love Denali!
But home is McCarthy, in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I truly believe it’s the most spectacular place in North America. Case in point – check out my daily commute! And the feature image was taken while I was standing on my front porch! It doesn’t get much better than this.
My daily commute to work
I hope you’ve enjoyed some of my favorite places. As Jim Morrison of the Doors said, the West is the best!
