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Mojave Wildflowers 2019
“The Mojave Desert gets a Yellow Ocean for the season” Saturday, March 23rd 2019 Today I took a drive into the massive desert expanse between Victorville and Palmdale. I had known from years ago that certain patches of the desert would become covered in beautiful, vibrant clusters of the tiniest yellow flowers. The clusters were scattered however and due to the recent barrage of drought that California had suffered, they were not very common. This year was very different, with all the snow and rain that had pummeled the state in the last 3 months, I had a suspicion that the wildflower clusters would be back, but I never imagined…
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Hunting the Rare Snow Plant 2018
“In search of a rare, red, plant hiding in the woods!” Saturday, May 26th, 2018 During a hike along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) a few days ago with my mom, I spotted an extremely vivid plant growing out or the pine needles littered all over the forest floor. The elevation where I discovered this strange plant was 7,452 feet (2,271 m). There were no others like it in the vicinity, so I snapped a few reference photos with my iPhone 6s camera and decided to make an effort to return within a few days. I learned that the strange plant is referred to as a “Snow Plant” or “Snow…
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Death Valley Super Bloom 2016
Thursday, February 18th, 2016 Death Valley is a place of extreme heat and desolation with wide valleys well below sea level and surrounded by tall and eccentrically featured mountains of the Amargosa Range to the East and the sierra like peaks of the Panamint range to the west. Of all the times I have visited this beautiful park, never have I had the opportunity to catch the annual flower bloom, let alone the even more rare “Super Bloom” which was happening this year. The last Super Bloom occurred over a decade ago in 2005, so I was certainly not going to miss this! Victorville My day started off somewhat later than…
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Hike to the Devil's Chair
MOJAVE DESERT, CA Saturday, May 9th, 2015 After a trip out to the mountains the day before on my travel blog post: Winter in Spring 2015, I decided to take my parents out for a hike to the Devil’s Chair located in at the Devil’s Punchbowl Natural Area. I had done this trail once before when I was 60 lbs heavier and completely out of shape and I remember feeling like I was going to pass out, so I wanted to make sure and create a reasonable pace with many breaks along the way for my parents. The elevation of the region is 4,750 ft at the ranger’s station, however…
