Apogee Photo Magazine

Where To Find The Spring Wildflowers

by Bob Hitchman

Spring is the time for great renewal. Here are some ideas where to watch spring bloom.

When photographers talk about the best places for finding spring wildflowers, the Antelope Valley is often mentioned. Located on the western tip of the Mojave Desert, at the northern edge of Los Angeles County, these low, rolling hills are often carpeted with miles of orange California poppies. When conditions are right, when there has been just the right amount of winter rain and when spring days are warm and sunny, the Antelope Valley, like many of the deserts of Southern California are transformed into a photographer's dream of spring colors.

You can find Antelope Valley on your California map, about 16 miles west of the town of Lancaster. Drive west on Avenue I, past 110th Street W, and bear right on Lancaster Road to the California Poppy Preserve. This is definitely one of the best wildflower locations when conditions are good, usually sometime during the first two weeks of April. There have been heavy rains and cool temperatures across most of Southern California during the winter of í96/í97. This could develop into one of the greatest spring wildflower seasons in the past ten years, or it could be another bust. Photographers should begin calling the Wildflower Hot Line phone number (805) 948-1322 in late March for updates of conditions at the California Poppy Preserve. You can reach the Poppy Preserve by traveling north or south on California Interstate 5 to the town of Gorman. Exit the freeway and head east on the Gorman Post Road. The best displays have been seen along this road during the past few years.

You can get information on many other great locations for spring wildflowers by phoning the Theodore Payne Foundation's 24-hour hot line at (818) 768-3533. This information is updated weekly with details on So. Calif. wildflower spottings from Anza Borrego State Park, Joshua Tree National Park, and many other places for macro photography like the Cadiz Dunes, about 40 miles east of Joshua Tree. Desert photographers should also travel out to the Kelso Dunes and the Ivanpah Valley in the eastern Mojave Desert, as well as the sand hills down near Yuma, near the Mexican border.

The west side of the San Joaquin Valley often has wonderful displays of spring wildflowers following a wet winter - and this has been a very wet winter. Try driving north or south on Highway 33 and then heading west over the Carrizo Plain on Highway 58 toward Paso Robles. Watch for Shell Creek Road paralleling the east side of the Avenal Wildlife Refuge - another good wildflower location.

There are many great wildflower locations in Northern California, too, like Bear Valley, west of Williams, California. Drive about twenty miles west of Williams on Highway 20. Just past the intersection with Highway 16, turn right on the unpaved Wilber Springs Road. The remote Bear Valley is often the location of the best spring wildflowers in Northern California. You can continue heading north through Indian Valley, through Ladoga and Stonyford to find more wildflowers. The road eventually loops back to Interstate 5 at Willows or Orland. In addition to poppies, you can find miles of yellow goldfields and owl clover to photograph.

Check your map of Central California for the road from Monterey through the Carmel Valley to Arroyo Seco and then south through the Fort Hunter Liggett Military Reservation, past Mission San Antonio de Padua to Jolon, and then back to King City. This loop trip can take at least two days if wildflower conditions are good. The scenes around the Mission are classic California with green hills covered with spreading oaks.

For a different type of desert wildflower photography, travel down to southern Arizona. The Saguaro National Monument on both side of the city of Tucson, is a great place to search for spring color. The hillsides of Picacho Peak State Park, about 40 miles north of Tucson, are often seen on the pages of Arizona Highways Magazine because one of the best displays of wildflowers to be found anywhere in the west occurs there when conditions are right. I've found good wildflowers in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument south of Ajo, Arizona, and in the Tonto National Monument, in the Superstition Mountains, east of Phoenix.

It's hard to predict exactly when the Arizona desert will bloom. In Arizona, spring usually arrives first in the low desert along the Colorado River on the Arizona-California border. The season usually lasts about four months, from February in the Yuma area through April, and into the month of May on the higher peaks around Tucson. At an elevation of 7000 feet, Flagstaff is one of the last places where spring wildflowers are seen in Arizona.

Death Valley, California, can be an unreliable place to travel for spring wildflower displays. The average rainfall on Death Valley is somewhere in the range of 1-2 inches per year. If this extremely dry area of eastern California does receive a good rain shower in January, February, or March, a few warm days can bring forth a riot of spring wildflowers along many of the roads leading into the park. They don't last long but the sight is wonderful. It is almost impossible to pre-plan an expedition to find and photograph Death Valley wildflowers. They are so ephemeral.

Spring wildflowers on the alpine slopes above ten thousand feet near Ouray, Colorado, arrive late in July. You can drive to within a half-mile of Yankee Boy Basin with a two-wheel-drive vehicle and walk the last few hundred yards into chest-high blue columbine below vertical walls leading up to snow-capped peaks. Travel north into the Canadian Rockies to Lake Louise and then head southeast about ten miles to the Valley of Ten Peaks surrounding Alberta's Lake Moraine. The wildflower photography from the edge of the road is amazing and wild mushroom photography will keep you busy throughout the summer.

This coming April, I plan to drive the back roads around Austin, Texas, to photograph the bluebonnets and all the other Texas wildflowers. We'll see what this winter's rain will bring forth. I plan to drive west of Austin to Burnet, east to La Grange, and south to Yoakum in search of the best places for Texas spring wildflowers. All the information I dig up will be included in a future issue of Photograph America Newsletter. Become a subscriber and you'll receive information on where, when, and how to discover the best nature photography in America. Call 1-800-GET-FOTO to receive a brochure and a sample issue.

© 1997 Robert Hitchman