When I think stripes, zebra is the first thing to come to mind.
Stripes are easy, I thought. There are lots of stripes in nature. I thought of the multi-layered sedimentary rock that makes up so many of the spectacular landscapes of the desert Southwest.
Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument
There are lines of light and shadow.
Death Valley Dunes
You see stripes everywhere.
Checks, not so much.
These are sort of checks – I guess.
After all, Mother Nature is not really into squares and rectangles much. That’s more of a human thing, in most cases.
This plant is sort of checked.
But there are exceptions. The guinea fowl is the exception in this case. They totally sport the checked look in their wardrobe.
I usually spend April chasing the bloom, following the wildflowers north as I travel on my way home to Alaska. When John of Journeys With Johnbo proposed Going Back – The Second Time Around as the theme for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, I thought I would revisit my usual April travels, canceled this year by Coronavirus. I miss the flowers!
My wildflower journey starts in the California desert. There are three don’t-miss locations, each with its own unique flora, that I revisit every spring if I can.
Yucca Blossoms
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
The first is Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. This is California’s largest state park, and it’s a beauty. Anza-Borrego often has one of the best spring wildflower displays in the country.
The first time I visited Anza-Borrego it was during a rare cold spell in January. I wasn’t even thinking about flowers. Temperatures got into the teens overnight, unheard of in this region. I wasn’t expecting that! Pipes froze. I froze. I went to Agua Caliente Hot Springs to warm up, and my bathing suit froze into a solid block of ice as soon as I took it off.
Fishhook Cactus Flower
For my second time around, I made sure not to go in January! Now I go for the flowers, a little later in the year, anytime between mid-February to mid-April. I often visit twice, or even three times during a wildflower season, so that I can photograph different flowers as the bloom progresses.
The next time I go to Anza Borrego, chasing the bloom, I hope to hike Hellhole Canyon since I’ve never been there. Not only does it have great flowers, it’s a favorite hangout for Desert Bighorn Sheep. The Peninsular Bighorn is the subspecies that lives here. It’s usually found in Baja California, and Anza-Borrego is the only place in the US where you can find this animal.
Joshua Tree
Joshua Tree National Park
Going north, I’ll stop at Joshua Tree National Park. I don’t spend much time in the northern part of the park, with the iconic rocks and namesake Joshua Trees. I spend most of my time near the southern border, because that is where the wildflowers are.
The next time I go to Joshua Tree, I might spend more time up in the rocks. Maybe I’ll even get a campsite there. It looks like an incredible place to explore if I wasn’t quite so fixated on the flowers. I would like to catch a good sunrise, and sunset, from one of those northern campgrounds. I would also like to hike Porcupine Wash and find the petroglyphs I’ve heard are out there somewhere.
Death Valley is colorful!
Death Valley National Park
Then there’s Death Valley. It is a place close to my heart, as I was a ranger there for 8 winters. During some years the wildflowers are sensational, but in other years there is just not enough rain in the driest place in North America for a good spring bloom.
Death Valley is always worth a visit in the springtime, even if there aren’t a lot of flowers. You’ll probably find a few, and you might even find a flower that lives nowhere else in the world! There are literally thousands of untracked, remote, nameless canyons to explore. There are sand dunes and salt flats. And oh, the colors! You don’t need to have a bloom going on to find every color in the rainbow in Death Valley. I look forward to using my new Nikon camera there the next time I visit.
Tidy Tips
Carrizo Plains National Monument
Chasing the bloom, last year I visited Carrizo Plains National Monument for the first time. It won’t be the last. In a good year, Carrizo Plains has THE best wildflower display in the country! I’ve never seen anything like it. It boggles my mind to think that the whole Central Valley looked like this once, in the days before agriculture and oil wells. The flower fields go on forever, mile after mile of solid color. It looks like a monoculture in places, entire hillsides or valleys dyed purple or gold. But when you get out of your car and walk around, the variety is astounding. And the perfume in the air! The delicate scent of the flowers is the best thing about Carrizo Plains in my opinion, pure nirvana.
The next time I visit Carrizo Plains, I would like to visit the area near the campground. I never made it to that part of the Monument because of mechanical issues with my little truck. It was tired of all the dirt road back roads I was taking it on and went on strike! When I got back to pavement and went to the coast to get it fixed, the check engine light magically disappeared!
Purple Mountains’ Majesty
Sometimes I travel up the coast on my way home. There are some flowers, but no big displays, at least not of native flowers. Plenty of beautiful invasives, though!
Sierra Foothills
Usually, I head for the western Sierra foothills. When I get there in the middle of April, it is the peak of the spring bloom. It’s a different ecosystem with different flowers. There are lots of butterflies, too. My favorite bloom, though, is the Redbud tree.
Redbud Blossoms
Wow! I had never seen this tree before my first spring journey to the Sierra foothills. Pink, pink, pink, pink, pink! They’re gorgeous. I’m sorry I’m missing them this year.
Of course, I usually do a drive-thru of Yosemite to check out the waterfalls along the way. I camp for a couple of nights on BLM land along the Merced River. The flowers are great there, it’s close enough to the park for a visit, and it’s not crowded. Maybe the next time I visit the Sierra foothills and Yosemite I’ll actually camp in the park and spend a little more time there. I tend to make my visit short because the park is so loved to death, but if there has been a good snow year and the waterfalls are raging, I can’t resist.
A Yosemite Waterfall
Continuing north through the redwood forest, the flowers grow scarce. Nothing but Redwood Sorrel and Trillium in April there. But the trees make up for any lack of flowers.
Southern Oregon
I’ll continue chasing the bloom into southern Oregon, catching the last spring wildflower season I’ll see on my April journey North. Once again, different ecosystem, different flowers. Lilies abound, with a plethora of different varieties. There are shooting stars, too, one of my favorite flowers.
Fawn Lily and Shooting Stars
The next time I make it to southern Oregon in April, maybe I’ll spend a few more days there. I’m usually running out of time by then, with a deadline imposed by my return to work in Alaska.
I really miss the flowers this year. But maybe when I can travel, I’ll see a host of new varieties since my timing will be different. It’s something to look forward to.
My niece Jessica put up a post challenging her friends to flood FB with beach pictures. So I thought I’d bring on a little arch madness with a post on the sea arches of Mendocino County.
One of the arches you can see from the Mendocino Headlands
Sea arches are one of the most ephemeral of landforms, rarely lasting more than a century, often standing for only a few decades before the constant battering of the relentless surf sends them crashing down.
Stornetta Highlands, California Coastal National Monument
For instance, Natural Bridges State Park in Santa Cruz had 3 bridges in 1904. Today only one remains. If you’d like to see how dramatic these changes can be in such an incredibly short time, check out this article that Gary Griggs wrote for the Santa Aguila Foundation. The before and after pictures are astounding!
View from a tunnel on Seaside Beach
These geologic sculptures can be much more fragile than they look. Even thick, seemingly stable arches are subject to catastrophic collapse. In March 2015 an arch collapsed at Point Reyes National Seashore, killing a woman. If you’re walking the headlands of northern California and see signs warning you to stay back from the edges of the cliffs, heed them. Erosion is on a fast track here.
They call the formation on the left The Whale. No idea why.
Geohazards like these catastrophic collapses will become more and more common in future years, due to sea level rise caused by climate change.
An arch north of Westport
Your children may not see the same arches you did when they visit the Pacific Coast. But the forces that destroy these landforms are constantly carving new ones, exquisite jewels in a dynamic landscape ruled by the sea.
A new arch forming – What will it look like ten years from now?
For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Ann-Christine asks us to envision the future. It could be near future or far, personal future or universal.
“The future’s uncertain, but the end is always near. ” Jim Morrison
I read Tina’s post, with its warnings about the consequences of climate change. Climate change was already on my mind. I had just spent the morning at an open house held by the Navarro-By-The-Sea Center. They are trying to save the remaining historical buildings still standing at the site of the former town of Navarro-By-The-Sea, but the open house was held more to bring awareness of king tides and the rise of sea level due to climate change.
A king tide was in progress, so to get to the Center those of us without 4-wheel drive had to take a shuttle with high enough clearance to ford the water. The beach parking lot was completely underwater. Sea level is 6 inches higher than it was in 1950. This may not seem like much, but the rate is increasing dramatically, over 66% in the last 5 years. Now it’s rising at the rate of an inch every 5 years, and that rate is still going up. A lot of places are going under, and the king tides are a preview of what will become an everyday occurrence in the near future.
King tides and rising sea level
As I witness ecosystem crashes and see the current administration win one battle after another in its War Against Nature, I despair. When I contemplate the future, I fear we’re already past the tipping point.
I couldn’t go there. I thought of other signs of the consequences of climate change I could write about, but it all made me so sad. I couldn’t write a whole post with no hope, and I was feeling hopeless.
Sea level is rising.
I needed some positivity, so I started playing Michael Franti as I read the post from Soybend, “Someday in the Future”. It was uplifting, positive and poetic, just what I needed. I then learned about new research connecting melting ice in the Arctic to the increasing prevalence of El Nino cycles.
I saw a teeny, tiny silver lining to the dark storm clouds of the future. More El Ninos = more desert wildflowers. Ironic that as so many other places dry up and desiccate, the California desert will get wetter.
More desert wildflowers?
I started thinking about desert wildflowers, and that led me to my personal near future, which is actually pretty exciting.
“The future’s so bright, I’ve gotta wear shades.”
Patrick Lee Mac Donald
I’m currently housesitting on the beautiful Mendocino Coast in northern California. Think redwoods and wild, secluded beaches with an abundance of arches and sea stacks.
Love those Redwoods!
I’ll leave here in early March and go down to see the desert flowers. I’ll head east and travel through the Sierra foothills so I can avoid the urban insanity of San Francisco traffic. Along the way, maybe I’ll stop at Yosemite.
Yosemite Falls
I have four flower destinations in mind. Death Valley received nearly an inch of rain over the winter, which is a decent amount for that place. When I passed through in mid-January, there were a lot of little seedlings coming up. I even saw a Turtleback blooming already. If the winds and heat aren’t too brutal, it might be a nice bloom this year. Since the last 3 years were abysmal there, I’m looking forward to and hoping for a good season this time around.
Notchleaf Phacelia
Joshua Tree has gotten a lot of moisture this winter, both snow and rain. There’s a current winter storm warning there, so the precip is still happening. I think Joshua Tree might be THE place to check out this year, although I doubt if it will be quite as outrageous as it was last spring.
Purple Mat
Anza Borrego has gotten a fair amount of precipitation, too, over an inch in one winter storm. Smaller storms since then have kept the ground moist. Word is flowers are already blooming in Coyote Canyon.
Wild Apricot
Last year I discovered Carrizo Plains. The rough dirt roads are hard on my little truck, but I’ll just have to try to go slow and pray the washboard isn’t TOO bad. I thought it had some of the best wildflowers I’d ever seen, and Carrizo got hit by all the same storms that have inundated Joshua Tree.
Camping at Carrizo Plains
As I head back north to Alaska, those Sierra foothills and southern Oregon should be blooming. I’m not sure if I’ll travel back by the coast or interior yet, but by May I’ll be back home enjoying the incredible view from my front porch.
The countdown continues. A few days ago I posted spots 13 through 7 of my favorite 2019 photography destinations. This week, I list the best ones of all, the destinations that rated 1 through 6 of my personal best.
6) Joshua Tree National Park
Superbloom. Joshua Tree had one this past spring. Need I say more? This coming spring should be fairly good, too. It’s been raining and snowing with more rain and snow in the forecast. Even if the flowers aren’t as spectacular as they were last spring, Joshua Tree is still a great place to visit. It is also home to some very cool rocks. One of these days I plan to spend more time in the rocks – when I’m not so distracted by the flowers.
5) Anza Borrego State Park
Anza Borrego also had an excellent wildflower season. It was definitely one of my favorite 2019 photography destinations, as I got to visit not once, not twice, but three times! I saw different plants blooming each time. I even saw my favorite campsite in the park in bloom, something I’ve never been lucky enough to catch before.
Each winter vast numbers of sandhill cranes and snow geese descend upon the refuge for the winter. There are lots of other birds and wildlife, too.
It’s a great place to polish your craft. It has become one of my new favorite places.
Northern Pintail
3) San Simeon
Since I had a couple of different housesits on the central California Coast, Piedras Blancas and San Simeon became one of my favorite 2019 photography destinations. I spent a lot of time camping at San Simeon; before, in between and after my housesits.
Down on the beach right below the campground, there is a bird sanctuary. I took advantage of the wonderful opportunities for checking out the shorebirds there. And then there’s Cambria, just a few miles south. I love that little town, and I especially love Moonstone Beach, with all the pretty pebbles.
I’d been to San Simeon before and loved it, but never at the prime time for the elephant seal action. January and February are when the elephant seals at Piedras Blancas, just a few miles up the coast, are birthing, fighting, and mating. It’s a true wildlife extravaganza!
They’re so grouchy!
2) Carrizo Plains National Monument
This is definitely one of my new favorite places. Most of the year you’d never give it a second glance. But when the flowers bloom in the springtime, this land is amazing. Possibly the best wildflower display I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something. The most incredible thing, though, is the fragrance. In some places, the blend of different floral scents is pure nirvana. Take lots of deep breaths. The huge swaths of color, whole hillsides dyed pink, purple or yellow from acres upon acres of blooms can be pretty dang impressive, too.
Owl’s Clover & Goldfields
1) Wrangell-St. Elias National Park
There’s no place like home. Especially when your home is possibly the most spectacular place in North America! When I look at the view I get right from my front porch, it’s a wonder I ever leave the place!
This is my commute!
I hope you enjoyed checking out my favorite photographic destinations for 2019. 2020 will bring a host of new experiences. Some of my favorites will remain the same, but I’m sure I’ll find a treasure trove of new favorites, too. Where do you plan to go in 2020? Let me know in the comments.
Is suburbia really what we want for our national park campgrounds? The “Made in America” Outdoor Recreation Advisory Committee thinks so. Recommendations in their final report to the Department of the Interior call for “improvements” such as food trucks, Amazon deliveries and glamping.
I know that there are plenty of NPS campgrounds that are already practically suburbia. Campers are packed into tiny spaces like travelers flying economy, with no room to stretch their legs and no privacy. I’ve endured those campsites a time or two. A food truck probably wouldn’t make much difference in some of those places. There’s nothing wild left anyway.
Camping in Joshua Tree
But there are others – secluded “primitive” campgrounds where your neighbor is not breathing down your neck. Campgrounds where you can hear owls hoot or coyotes sing, and can still see the stars instead of the lights from your neighbor’s RV. I’ve stayed in some of those campgrounds, too, and loved them.
That is what has me so worried. This report targets those poor, primitive national park campgrounds that are so very, very far away from gateway communities. Campgrounds that can still give a visitor an experience they won’t find at home. It says right in the document “especially in park units with low levels of visitor services that now limit public use.”
Split Rock Campground Dinosaur National Monument
It’s all a roundabout way of selling off our public lands to the highest bidder. No one could say that this committee was fair and unbiased, or that it did not have a very obvious agenda – the great god profit. Just look at who the people on this committee are and who they represent.
Camping in North Cascades
The Committee
Bill Yeargin, President and CEO, Correct Craft – They make motorboats.
Derrick Crandall, President of the American Recreation Coalition – This is a Washington lobbying group promoting the interests of the motorized recreation industry – snowmobile manufacturers, boat & engine dealers, the motorcycle industry and RV parks and campgrounds are some of their clients.
Ben Bulis, President and CEO, American Fly Fishing Trade Association – they make fishing gear.
Bruce Fears, President, ARAMARK Harrison Lodging – Park concessionaires.
Brad Franklin, Government Relations Manager, Yamaha Motor Corporation USA – they make motorcycles and ATVs.
Antonio Gonzalez, Head of Operations, Erwin Hymer Group North America – a camper van manufacturer that went into receivership in July due to “certain financial irregularities” .
Jeremy Jacobs, Co-CEO, Delaware North – another park concessionaire
Chris Maloof, Former Senior Vice President, Product Management, Rogue Wave – Listed as a representative of camping, recreational and/or all-terrain vehicles interests on the committee.
Phil Morlock, Vice President, Government Affairs and Advocacy, Shimano North America Holding, Inc./Shimano Canada Ltd. – They make bike and fishing gear.
John Morris, Founder and CEO, Bass Pro Shops – Outdoor retailer
Patrick Pacious, President and CEO, Choice Hotels International, Inc. – Hotel business
Jim Rogers, Former Chairman and CEO, KOA (Kampgrounds of America) – These guys are the kings of RV campgrounds. They are the largest privately owned campground business in the world.
K.C. Walsh, Executive Chairman and majority owner, Simms Fishing Products – They make fishing gear.
Linda Craghead, Director, Facilities Division, Kansas State University – Ms. Craghead is the token committee member who does NOT represent a private business. In her former roles with the Kansas State Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, she earned a reputation as an exceptional marketer for the state’s parks and tourism opportunities.
Kalaloch Campground, Olympic National Park
Who is NOT on the committee
This is not a balanced roster. Many important stakeholder groups have no voice. Some of these stakeholders include non-profit organizations already involved in service projects for the parks, whose members are frequent visitors to national park campgrounds, from the Boy Scouts to the Sierra Club. It does not include in its long list of outdoor recreation manufacturers any of the businesses who service a clientele endeavoring to leave a lighter footprint on the land, such as REI or the Outdoor Industry Association This committee is a gang of good old boys and motorheads pushing their personal agendas, and our parks could be the losers.
The “studies” quoted as the source for their consensus on modernization were actually conducted by KOA. This is not exactly a fair and unbiased source. In fact, it represents a conflict of interest.
Camping at sunset in Arches
Undermining the National Environmental Policy Act
Usually, when a national park proposes to undertake a major project, such as building a new campground or substantially changing an existing one, they have to give the public time to weigh in. They hold meetings locally. They open the project to public comment so that all stakeholders have a voice.
Every national park is unique, and so is every campground location. What works in one park may be all wrong for another.
The committee would like to subvert this process. Recommendation #3 states “Multiple operational models for campgrounds can be identified and communicated to park units, along with information that would expedite any NEPA-related reviews. Key to this would be “categorical permissions,” covering key campground components …”
Redwood National Park
On the Fast Track
They’ve also put these projects on the fast track. Their document states “The lessons learned with near-immediate operational changes in national parks can be then replicated for other Interior bureaus …”
How near-immediate? Recommendation #2 – “A Secretarial challenge can be established and implemented by December 1st, 2019. “That’s pretty damn near immediate.
Food trucks are only the beginning. In last year’s letter to the Secretary of the Interior, the committee strongly urged a more open attitude towards motorized vehicles and drones, without even a nod to the possible infringement on other visitors’ right to privacy or a natural soundscape. They don’t seem to realize that people go to national parks to commune with nature, not their neighbors or their neighbors’ toys.
Canyonlands National Park
Any good suggestions?
I don’t disagree with all of the committee’s conclusions. More group campground sites for extended family groups? That’s an excellent idea and will help the NPS build a more diverse audience. Showers in the campgrounds? I enjoy this in some state parks I’ve visited. In a few locations it would be a great idea. However, many of our National Parks in the arid West really don’t have the water to spare and should be teaching people to conserve, not consume, scarce resources.
Another recommendation by the committee leaves me with mixed feelings. They propose blackout periods at peak times for seniors taking advantage of the half-price camping offered with their Golden Age passes.
Sol Duc Campground, Olympic National Park
I understand that this makes economic sense. But blackout periods for seniors and raising campground prices for “improvements”, that many campers would prefer to do without, marginalizes people with lower incomes, including many seniors.
Personally, it kind of chaps my hide, because I become eligible for half-price camping in two weeks. I’ve been looking forward to it, and as soon as I can get it, they want to take it away. Guess I’m a day late and a dollar short as usual…
Camping at Organ Pipe
What does the NPS think?
What does the NPS think of this report? No word yet. But there are guiding statements that should influence the Park Service point of view. One of the strategic goals listed as an NPS priority in the NPS Deferred Maintenance 101 presentation is “eliminate non-essential development in parks in order to emphasize the parks’ natural and cultural significance.”
And of course there’s that statement the whole NPS mission is built on, the founding statement in the 1916 Organic Act – “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations”.
I sincerely hope the National Park Service will keep its mandate in mind when they consider the suggestions made by this blatantly special interest dominated advisory committee.
