Death Valley Spring Flowers 2005Death Valley Spring Flowers 2005
Death Valley was one of the few great California National Parks I had
not visited. In particular, I hoped to see the spring bloom. In 2005,
the rains were tremendous and generated the largest wildflower bloom in living
memory. In some cases seeds dormant for 30 years waiting for the right
amount of rain sprung out to cover the floor of the valley. Normally this is
one of the world's driest deserts.
Of course, Death Valley has lots of other scenery, but the flowers mostly
added to it. By far the most populous flower was the yellow Desert Gold,
but fields of white and purple could also be seen. In addition, a large
lake formed in the basin at Badwater, the lowest point in North America.
This lake is not normally there, so many came out to do strange things in
it.
The rest of California is also blooming, so to make it a "Three Flower Tour"
we also went through the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve and the
relatively new Carrizo plain National Monument on the way back, until
rainy weather sent us back home.
Of course, I shot a large number of Death Valley Panoramics.
Most of the photos here will feature carpets of flowers. For the bulk
that have that as their main emphasis, there are two sections above. But
you'll see carpets in many other areas.
There are web sites
for flower reports and when we heard the bloom would be so full, we booked
some of the last rooms at the Furnace Creek Ranch, and invited other friends
to join us. Dan Heller, a fine
photographer, joined us with his wife and new son. Others came later.
Each day the bloom changed. We would go north and see a field of flowers
that had barely been there the day before. By our third day, the crowds
also were going nuts, with traffic jams and no rooms or campsites in or
near the park. The bloom will continue until April, moving north and
to higher elevations. We were pretty close to the peak.
