The super bloom of 2016 splashed lots of color across Death Valley National Park. This shot was taken along the Badwater Road/NPS file
Though it has been a wet and wild winter along the Sierra, and though last summer's monsoonal season dumped quite a bit of water on Death Valley National Park, park officials are not expecting a "super bloom" of wildflowers this spring.
"Looks like it will be an average bloom," said Abby Wines, the park's management analyst, in an email.
Super blooms in the park are an amazing spectacle. They occur when higher than normal amounts of moisture fall on the landscape in fall and winter.
With the flow from El Nino bountiful (relative to Death Valley's norm of little more than 1.5 inches per year) in late 2015 and early 2016, the bloom in 2016 turned into a "super bloom," with showy displays from February into mid-March before they began to taper off in the park's lower elevations. Death Valley officials called it the best bloom in a decade.
Park officials say that when such incredible blooming seasons arrive, they typically start in the lower elevations of Death Valley, below 1,000 feet, and steadily move up in elevation as the weeks pass and the summer heat ramps up. By mid-March the lower elevation blooms are on the wane, though some nice displays can be found higher up.
In March 2016, Traveler Editor Kurt Repanshek and his oldest son, Jess, were treated to radiating fields of Desert Gold that lined the road from Furnace Creek south to the Ashford Mill Ruins and north along the road to Scotty's Castle. Walking out into the waving wildflowers, they spotted an occasional Desert Five Spot and delicate sprays of Indian Paintbrush. Were they more able botanists they likely would have identified Desert Gold Poppies, Golden Evening Primrose, and Fremont Phacelia.
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