338/365

Day 338 was our trip to Death Valley. March 2005 was Death Valley's big famous bloom. LA & the surrounding areas had had a very wet winter, and that apparently means that Death Valley retains the moisture and allows a plethora of wildflowers to bloom. So LV and a few friends and I made the trip back then. That was about a week before it became enormously popular and the park was flooded with visitors.

This past winter had apparently been similar in its rainfall and moistness but we weren't quite sure the bloom would be reminiscent of the Great Bloom of 2005.

I've uploaded pictures both from this time and last time to a flickr set here for you to look more indepth. I've included a few comparisons here. There's certainly flowers that we found last time that we didn't find this time, and there were definitely flowers we found anew this time around.

A quick summary of both trips:

2005: original Great Bloom, a night in the sand dunes, discovering dodder (a bright orange parasitic plant), seeing actually water in Badwater Basin.

2010: almost-as-good bloom, a hike in the warm sand dunes, discovering what dodder actually is called, seeing oodles of salt and feeling temperatures up to 101° while in Death Valley and understanding its name, discovering tiny but hardy new-to-us flowers.

2005 Bloom:



2010 Bloom:



2005 View from Natural Bridge Trailhead:


2010 View from Natural Bridge Trailhead:

(See the water?)



(No water here.)

Some of my wildflower favorites, labeled properly thanks to a handy brochure I picked up at the Visitor's Center. Incidentally, our trip in 2010 coincided with Free Week in National Parks.





These flowers were so tiny that we almost missed them. I wished I had thought to put a penny down so you could see the scale. The gravel below them is small... and doesn't look like it in the photo.



Same here, very tiny flowers...



We found TONS of these, and LV thinks we didn't find many last time.





I think I need to hope for a good rain again in 5 years and make another trip. A CA tradition, perhaps?

Death Valley

Really, there's no rhyme or reason to my photos yet. They're not in chronological order, not by far. Right now, I'm just pulling from my flickr account and going through the 'archives' and seeing what inspires me to tell a story. Maybe March's project will be a photo from that particular day. Of course that requires me to take at least one photo every day, but there in lies the challenge.



This photo was taken in the sand dunes of Death Valley. Yes, that Death Valley. Do you remember several winters ago when LA was simply drowning in rainfall? Well that rain also fell in Death Valley, and caused all sorts of flowers and vegetation to bloom. That's right, BLOOM, in Death Valley. One of my high school friends, his girlfriend, a friend of hers, and I decided to make a trek to see the blooms in Death Valley. This was in March.

It was a ton of fun, and we spent the night in the sand dunes, after having dinner there. I'm sure we went to bed pretty early and we woke up fairly rested at the crack of dawn. Literally. So we got to watch the sun rise over the dunes which was a lovely experience and I have several minutes of it catalogued on my camera. This particular picture was taken on our hike back towards the cars. Guess which one I am. ;-)

We ended up going to the lowest point in the United States, Badwater Basin, which unlike normal, actually held water. The days did get warm, but nowhere near the overwhelming and oppressive heat that Death Valley is famous for.

Seeing so much green and other colors dotting the otherwise bare landscape was a sight to see. I think I came back from that trip with 300+ pictures.

And the best part of all? We beat the rush. Sure, there were other people there. But at least a week or so later, the Great Bloom was featured on 60 Minutes (if not other news magazines) and the crowds POURED into Death Valley.

I don't have many photos posted from the trip on Flickr, but just give me time. ;-)