2005 Springtime Desert Tour
Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
Joshua Tree National Park
Death Valley National Park
"2005 -- The Year of the Rains and the Year of the Bloom"
California measures rainfall in a season from July 1 to the next June 30.
Some parts of the Southern California deserts were enjoying a damp shift
from the normal dryness of July and August 2004. Heavy rains led to flash
floods in parts that are normally dry as a bone. As an example, Furnace Creek
in Death Valley National Park normally gets less than two inches of rain
per year. By March 2005 over six inches had been recorded, and the total
was still increasing. Additionally, rain had been spread out into each month,
and not isolated into any single storm or two, and many wildflower seeds
need that for germination. By January 2005, the predictions were lining up
that the March timeframe would show a big bloom in desert wildflowers, so
travel plans were made. These predictions were right on the money.
Day One:
I photographed briefly at the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve, but the California
poppies were not quite at their peak bloom. A delay of two weeks might have
served me better.
(California poppies)
I headed to the east side of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. I photographed
wildflowers one afternoon, and then I spotted some Gambel's Quail (which
is a desert bird that I had seen only in books). I chased off into the brush
to get their photo with my camera on its tripod. When I was hip-deep in deep
brush, I heard the unmistakable and immediate buzzing sound of a rattlesnake
very close. Instinctively, I fell/jumped backwards, and my precious Canon
digital camera fell and broke on a large rock. The camera was finished. I
was awake all night, wondering about my trip plans. I resorted to Plan B,
which was to use my Canon film camera, which I had along as a backup, although
I had only a few rolls of pro slide film in hand.
(quail photo)
(many acres of sunflowers along Henderson Canyon Road)
Day Two:
I hiked the Borrego Palm Canyon at sunrise, hoping to see some desert bighorn
sheep (Spanish "borrego") at the palm oasis halfway up the canyon. No luck.
However, the canyon had really changed its complexion since last year. In
September, a flash flood wiped out that canyon. A National Park Service eyewitness
reported seeing an 8-10 foot wall of water scouring the canyon that day,
and it had wiped out part of the campground then. Most of the best wildflowers
are gone, and it might take them some years to regenerate.
(palm oasis)
I headed down to the central part of the park around Blair Valley. There,
I drove in on a 4WD sand road for five miles to get to a one-mile hiking
trail to get to some Indian pictographs on a boulder. In other places, pictographs
and petroglyphs can be easily deciphered for meaning. The symbols for Sun,
River, Joshua Tree, and common desert things like that are pretty clear.
These pictographs have not been deciphered, except for the sun symbol, so
maybe they are just geometric patterns done by an earlier native.
(pictograph photo)
(Nolina, a relative of yucca)
Day Three:
I left Anza-Borrego and went north to the south entrance of Joshua Tree National
Park. The desert flowers were a joy to behold. Pale yellow Desert Dandelions
were all over the place. Only a few Joshua Trees were blooming, and only
a few of the Ocotillo bushes were also. No cacti blooms were visible.
(desert dandelions with some Arizona lupine)
(ocotillo, an evergreen)
(cholla)
(blooming Joshua Tree, a member of the lily family)
I spotted a desert tortoise trying to cross the highway, so I stopped traffic
until it could get across the pavement and I could get the photo. It did
not seem to appreciate me, judging by its threatening mouth gestures.
(tortoise)
Instead of sticking to the Interstate highways and main roads, I drove north
across the desert to Baker via the Kelbaker Road, which is kind of an adventure
in itself. Along the way, I passed the Bristol Dry Lake, which is no longer
a dry lake due to the big winter rainfall. Then I continued north toward
the southeast corner of Death Valley National Park. I wanted to be around
Highway 178's Salsbury Pass for sunrise.
Day Four:
The wildflower scenes near Salsbury and Jubilee Passes were pretty nice,
but I had seen better. Once you've seen ten million desert sunflowers, you've
seen them all. I guess we can say that Mother Nature slipped on a puddle
of rainwater and spilled her paint palette of flower colors all over the
desert floor.
(coreopsis, looking northward into the Greenwater Valley)
(sunflowers)
(Desert Fivespot)
I covered the south end of Death Valley, and then I continued northbound
on the Badwater Road. Normally, this looks like a huge valley covered in
rock rubble and covered with a veneer of white salt and alkalai crust. At
Badwater, there was an actual lake that has formed from the winter rainfall,
three times that of a normal year. It was an amazing amount of water for
such a salty, dry place.
<science class>
Badwater is the lowest point of land in North America, roughly 282 feet
below sea level. First-time visitors to Badwater always ask the question:
"Why is there so much white salt here?"
If we go way back in geologic time, say two billion years, the earliest Death
Valley rocks were formed. Precambrian rocks are visible deep in some of the
canyons. Then there was a period when this area was covered by an inland
sea. During one period of tectonic movement, the west coast of North America
lined up near our modern-day Death Valley. Within the last 100 million years,
the Pacific Ocean tectonic plate collided with the North American plate,
which caused much of the extreme geologic folding that is visible today in
the park.
The rocks that had originally been on the ocean bottom contained many chemical
compounds, including sodium chloride (common salt). Once that was tectonically
uplifted, the salty rocks became the mountains west of Death Valley and somewhat
surrounding Death Valley. During the ice ages during the Pleistocene Epoch,
starting maybe three million years ago, glaciers were found all along the
Sierra Nevada Range. Over the eons, glacial melt and rain washed the excess
salt and chemicals out of the rock, and this was especially true for the
time period after the last major ice age (maybe 10,000 to 20,000 years ago
after the Tioga Glaciation). Owens Lake flowed into China Lake, which flowed
into Searles Lake, which flowed into Lake Panamint, which eventually flowed
into historic Lake Manly (present day Death Valley). The salty water continued
to flow into Lake Manly, and since there was no outlet, the lake and its
salty chemicals persisted. Lake Manly had reached a depth of around 600 feet
and was nearly 100 miles long. Picture a rock-lined bathtub that size with
no drain.
Eventually, the weather and the mountains circling the lake created a kind
of furnace (as in Furnace Creek). The dry heat slowly evaporated Lake Manly's
waters, and the chemicals began to leave the solution. Carbonates, sulfates,
and borates left first, and those mineral deposits are found upstream quite
a distance from Badwater. Borate ores were mined in several spots on the
valley floor during the 1883-1888 period, and the Twenty Mule Team borax
wagons hauled the loads out to Los Angeles. The most soluble chemical was
sodium chloride, so it stayed in solution until the bitter end. A briny mixture
of rock, mud, and silt slowly drained down to the bottom of the valley. On
a normal year, the winter rainwater evaporates off and pure white salt is
left at Badwater.
<class end>
This year, Lake Manly had reappeared, however temporary. Telescope Peak,
11,049 feet, the highest point in the park, is seen in the background. So,
we are viewing the highest point and the lowest point of the park here.
(lake photo)
Similarly, just north of Badwater at the Devils Golf Course, the rough salt
formations were rather different this year. Where the Amargosa River crosses
the West Side Road, there was a considerable flow of clear water where normally
the dry salt plates creak and grind.
(salt photo)
(salt plates and Amargosa River flowing)
(salt flat)
I stopped at Furnace Creek Ranch. That held another interesting sight, the
reverse of the previous ones, since it was dry. Normally, there is irrigation
water spraying all around the golf course and irrigation water flowing in
ditches to the many hundred giant date palm trees. There was a reason for
this change.
(date palms at Furnace Creek Ranch)
Back in September 2004, a flash flood had roared down Furnace Creek Wash,
and it completely wiped out Highway 190. It took out the pavement and the
road bed for a long distance. Despite that being inside the national park,
it is a California state highway that preceded the park. Therefore, the repair
was a state responsibility. California's budget crisis was not helping the
situation, and California appealed for federal aid, which was not forthcoming.
So, months slipped by without action. Finally, California let the contracts
and the highway rebuilding commenced. The project completion date had been
stated as "Spring 2005," and the National Park Service had hopes of its completion
by March, but that didn't happen. When I was there in March, the projection
was "the end of April," but oldtimers in the park were laying odds on it
slipping out to May or even June. Meanwhile, the entire stretch of highway
over to Death Valley Junction was completely closed. The highway construction
on Highway 190 had the normal Furnace Creek water flow diverted, so Furnace
Creek was temporarily dry. If the date palm trees die at Furnace Creek Ranch,
then we will know why.
The animals of Death Valley just went about their normal business.
(one opportunistic crow)
(Antelope ground squirrel)
(panorama view)
(Death Valley flowers)
The desert is a great place to go to escape from civilization for a few days.
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