Carrizo Plain

 

Carrizo Plain near the southern end of Soda Lake Road, with owl's clover, fiddleneck, and daisies galore. The Temblor Range is in the distance.
(Click images to view larger.)

I don't have much to add to what I've already said in the previous recent posts about my very brief Carrizo Plain visit. Carrizo still remains a kind of wildflower Shangri-La in my mind, ever since learning about it in a botany class at Santa Barbara City College back in the '80s. I've seen it looking very sparse in April in dry years, and I've been there in the winter when all is brown. I love it all.

The peak of the bloom is no doubt coming later this month, but I doubt it will measure up to last year's extravaganza. Still, there are some showy patches even now, and I saw lots of lupine leaves giving promise of purple blossoms still to come.

This is as far as I went, to the end of the little bit of paved road near Traver Ranch. From what I could see from here, it didn't look worth the risk to keep going in my low-clearance 2WD vehicle. The sign says: Road Becoming Impassable. Vehicles Stuck in Mud. Recommend Turn Around. Use Alt Route to Hwy 58.

People who've gotten stuck are found by California Highway Patrol searchers flying helicopters. Tow trucks are then called in. I can only wonder how much all that costs, and whether people are on the hook for any CHP expenses in addition to what must be a very expensive tow.

A pronghorn on the plain in a very dry spring (4/10/2008).

Morning light on the plain.

There were animal trails and lays here and there, but I didn't see any elk or pronghorn, or even deer or cattle. It couldn't all be due to photographers.... Or could it?!

Why do they call them hillside daisies even when they're on the plain?

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Desert Lilies to Death Valley

 

Desert lilies with verbena and creosote bush along Desert Center-Rice Road, just south of the Desert Lily Sanctuary.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I couldn't find any lilies in the sanctuary despite arriving with a lucky rainbow in the distance, and I wondered if the ground has become more gravelly over the nearly 70 years since Tasker and Beula Edmiston first saw them here, making the land less conducive to growing lilies.

As I left the sanctuary and accelerated to driving speed I suddenly spotted numerous desert lilies growing just a little distance into the desert near the road. The sun came out in my heart, and I hit the brakes to pull over, with little daylight left to burn. 

After a short visit with the lilies I drove to Joshua Tree where I spent the night near the south entrance, and where I was awakened a few times by a chatty mockingbird who must have been singing to the beautiful half-moon arcing across the sky. By morning the mockingbird's singing had died down, but the wind had come up, very much alive. The car thermometer read 47 degrees, but I was warm in my down jacket. I skipped making coffee and ate more of my pasta salad for breakfast before trying to do some photography in the area around my parking spot. (For three days I ate pasta salad, baby carrots and hummus, potato chips, and trail mix.)

I exited Joshua Tree at Twentynine Palms, then took Amboy Road north to Historic Route 66 which was open as far as Kelbaker Road, which I used to traverse Mojave National Preserve up to SR 127 which took me to Death Valley.

The entrance doesn't even have a recognizable driveway. You basically just pull off the road into an open, gravelly area.

Pulling in, I wasn't entirely sure I was in the right place...

...until I reached the sun-parched interpretive sign, which says the Edmistons discovered this place on Easter Sunday 1957, and the 2,000-acre site was proteced by the BLM on Easter Sunday 1968. Just for the record, I was there on Easter Sunday 2024....

Although I found no lilies in the sanctuary, I was graced with this ghost flower (Mohavea confertiflora), an old friend I hadn't seen since 1994.

Desert lily (with soaproot-like leaves) and pink desert sand verbena. The sand really was pinkish -- or at least it appeared so in the last light of day.

Hurrying back to the car after shooting the lilies (wanting to get to Joshua Tree before full dark), I had to stop and get the gear back out again when I spotted this crop of desert broomrape (Orobanche cooperi). I love how this non-photosynthetic plant pushed out of the ground like a mushroom.

This was the wind-tossed wildflower patch next to the pull-out where I spent the night.

I love the rocks in Joshua Tree. These are overlooking a sandy wash that was still quite damp. This also is near my overnight sleeping spot...

...as was this chuparosa in the company of several blooming ocotillos.

Same wash still, with some evening primrose in bloom...

...and this guy sleeping it off inside one of the blossoms (which you just make out in the previous photo).

Ocotillo close-up of the leaves and bark.

Ocotillo branches.

Canterbury Bells (Phacelia campanularia).

A closer view.

Creosote Bush (Larrea tridentata) and Ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens).

As I drove and drove, I was worried I'd somehow missed the Cholla Gardens, but they finally turned up quite a bit farther into the park than I remembered. I also mis-remembered them being on a steeper slope. I also remembered, correctly for a change, that my wife and I pretty much had the place to ourselves when we came through many years ago (April 10, 2007). This time the parking lot was packed, and people were roaming all over the place.

The jumping chollas, or teddy-bear chollas (Cylindropuntia bigelovii), formed an island surrounded for miles by creosote bush scrub. Even stranger is the possibility that the whole garden consists of only one individual that has reproduced itself vegetatively.

While I was gingerly walking around and setting up my camera I heard a young boy shout out in frightened surprise, "I thought I could do it!" Apparently he'd  tried to pet a teddy bear and found out why they call it "jumping" cholla. Shortly after that came his anguished cry of, "Dad! No!" as I imagined his father trying to unhook the cactus. 

Pinkish granite in Joshua Tree.

I think this wild rhubarb, or Tanner's dock (Rumex hymenosepalus), was along Amboy Road. When I saw them I went from 65 to 0 much more quickly than I can accelerate the other way around.

I don't even recall where this is, but probably still along Amboy Road.

This was another stop along the way, just a random expanse of wildflowers in the middle of nowhere. Despite the lonely locale, I could see a cell tower in the distance, and I did in fact have excellent cell service (as I did in many other out-of-the-way locales, allowing me to text my wife with numerous selfies).

I kept thinking I should stop to take a picture of one of these cute desert tortoise signs, but it wasn't until I stopped to check out the old Kelso train depot that I finally did so.

The drive down the mountains into Death Valley was interesting, but a kind of depression hit me when I reached Ashford Mill, where my hopes of seeing lots of wildflowers, as I had in 2005, were dashed. [4/20/2024 UPDATE: I was too early for the wildflowers!]

As I continued driving north I didn't really see any signs of life on the alluvial plain on either side of the road. Also, I drove for quite a while before Lake Manly came into view, and I thought I'd missed my chance to see it. When I finally got there I took a few photos with my DSLR, then switched to the FZ80 for just about the rest of my very brief jaunt through the park.

I was briefly driving behind a pick-up with two kayaks loaded on top, but they were just passing through. I believe the lake became too shallow for kayakers a few weeks ago.

People were enjoying the lake near Badwater.

Not only is Badwater the lowest point in North America, it was the warmest point on my three-day drive, reaching 81 degrees. (The low would be 38 degrees in Carrizo Plain.)

This guy was enjoying the lake without the crowd.

A dust devil gives an idea of the wind out there.

You gotta love Death Valley's geologic features. I just wish there had been some colorful spring wildflowers to put in the foreground.

There were many of these golden evening primrose flowers (Camissonia brevipes) here and there, making them the sole exception to the rule of no wildflowers. These were seen on the way up to Dante's View.

Here's a desultory snapshot from Dante's View, with his inferno below. Unfortunately there were no decent wildflowers to put in the foreground, and the harsh late-afternoon light was putting the Panamint Range in shadow. I did not break out the DSLR.

After taking their picture with their phone, I chatted awhile with a friendly young couple from Ontario, Canada, who'd flown in from San Diego. They thought Death Valley was great, including the heat, since it was still quite icy back home. As for me, I kept drinking water to stave off an incipient dehydration headache. Some of us San Franciscans can't take the heat much past 65 degrees!

* * *

Anza-Borrego Desert

 

Ocotillo in creosote bush scrub, Hell Hole Canyon

The last day of March (Easter Sunday) began when I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and hit the road an hour later, arriving in rainy Anza-Borrego Desert State Park around 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I remembered squeezing in my last trip there on a long weekend when I was working four days a week, and being amazed that I could so quickly drive to a place so utterly foreign to, say, Mt. Tamalpais or Pt. Reyes -- a place where the average annual rainfall is just 5 or 6 inches -- and still be back at work on Monday. 

The shots below are laid out chronologically, with the first stop being some colorful beavertail catus and spindly ocotillo that I encountered coming down from the mountains on Road S22 on the eastern side of the park. I guess because I've only made a handful of quick photo trips to Anza-Borrego, the landscape didn't seem as familiar as I expected, and Borrego Springs has gone from a sleepy, tiny town to a bustling, tiny town. 

Bright pink beavertail cactus, with some red-flowered chuparosa (Justicia californica) (better examples to come when I get to Joshua Tree) on the side.

Rain coming down from the mountains, bringing the desert floor to life.

Creosote bush scrub at the bottom of Hellhole Canyon.

Flowering barrel cactus.

Same cactus after the rain passed.

Barrel cactus flowers up close. I was glad I'd brought my umbrella. I only needed it for a little while, and it dried out very quickly between rain squalls.

Spiny cholla cactus (of which there are many species).

I'd heard about the presence of white-lined sphynx moth caterpillars but couldn't find any for the first couple of minutes. I thought I'd blown my timing, but once I spotted the first one, the rest were everywhere. Some were light-colored like this one, while others were much darker. They were all feasting on dune evening primrose (Oenothera deltoides).

Wildflower assortment along Henderson Canyon Road, where the caterpillars were. Patches like this were no longer common by the time I was there. I was actually a little disappointed to have missed the bloom when it was more fresh and spread out, earlier in the month.

Nevertheless, there were still a few nice singles around, like this brittlebush (Encelia farinosa).

Sleeping beauties.

At one point it looked like the ladybug took a drink of the water droplet on this lupine leaf.

Caterpillar in suspense.

Close-up of its pretty (horrifying?) face.

Heading out of the park toward Salton Sea, I spotted another batch of wildflowers just off the road in a sandy wash.

Desert sand verbena (Abronia villosa), with dune primrose and brittlebush.

A nice verbena bloom on the sandy alluvium. This is the area where I saw a lone desert lily (in not very photogenic circumstances).

A pincushion of brittlebush alongside the road. Next stop, the Desert Lily Preserve.

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