Is the SuperBloom even a thing? Well apparently so. I say this in the context of showing my SuperBloom photos weeks later to people who are not from California. To be met with a “that’s nice” or a casual “yeah, looks pretty”. The challenge for these people (who herald from places with a lot of rain), is that the vibrant grassy hillsides and explosions of spring color in California are really not so unusual or impressive for them. That green green grass of home that we grew up with in the UK (also very apparent in the Pacific Northwest), well it’s green for a reason.
For a number of years, I think pretty much since we moved out to California in 2011, there has been a drought in this state. Maybe we didn’t realize it early on. As visitors from a much wetter background, we just relished the clear blue skies and lapped up the sunny days as totally fitting our expectations of the California vibe. Over the years, the terrain gradually got drier, the fields got barer and the barren sandy hillsides became the norm. We didn’t realize dry was a thing, to us it was just the way it was. And the desert is supposed to be dry, right?
Spring 2019 however, was bucking the recent meteorological trend. I know it’s all relative with the horrendous weather that some other areas were experiencing (I’m talking polar vortex and hurricanes) but California had… wait for it… RAIN! Big deal for SoCal. Headline breaking rain. The type of rain that ruins weekend activities, leaving you pining for the outdoors, your only option to ensconce yourself on the couch, eat comfort food, and binge watch some Game of Thrones re-runs.
I start with this rather long-winded introduction just to set the scene and to level set your expectations, in case you’re not quite as impressed as we were. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So anyway, this particular weekend trip had been a long time coming. One of the supposed benefits of the extensive rain we’d been experiencing was the expanse of wildflowers emerging across the California countryside, in particular the desert areas. And so it began… we were on a mission. A mission to find wildflowers. A mission to experience the California SuperBloom.
Plenty of cacti, but where are all the flowers?
First night camping spot, Anza-Borrego
First stop Anza-Borrego, the largest State Park in California. After a somewhat slow start on our first day, we did eventually find ourselves immersed in color. Overwhelmingly yellow – lemon yellow, butter yellow, egg yolk yellow – my limited research enlightened me that some of these were desert dandelions (hmmm), others desert sunflowers, and yet others brittle bush. A short hike took us even more up close and personal, with reds, whites and purples, and flowering cacti but I won’t even try to pretend I can remember their names.
It’s difficult to go anywhere near Joshua Tree National Park without paying it a visit. Visit we did, and JT in the spring, especially spring 2019, was a wonderful thing.
Cholla just starting to come into bloom
A ‘field’ of Cholla, or Teddy Bear Cactus, in front of a yellow-speckled hillside
Even the Joshua Trees were blooming
Camping amongst the lupines
Have pizza oven, will travel
One of the knock on effects of the SuperBloom is the additional food for the grubs to eat – leading to record numbers of butterflies. Actually a specific type of butterfly known as a ‘Painted Lady’ for its vibrant orange and black markings. We first started to notice the butterflies a week earlier on a local whale watching cruise. It seemed bizarre to see all these tiny winged creatures spasmodically flapping past us a few miles out at sea. My initial guess was that they were flying from the Californian Channel Islands to the mainland, maybe 10 miles in a straight line, which seemed kind of far for a butterfly to have to go without stopping.
Little did I know these butterflies were actually from Mexico, destination Oregon. Wait, what? A distance of over 3,000 miles! A journey that takes them right through California. What we’d seen out at sea were simply the brave leaders of the pack – the Mo Farrahs and the Paula Radcliffes of the butterfly world. A week later now in the desert, there were hundreds of the damn things flying past us, and while butterflies don’t really go in a straight line, they were unmistakenly heading north with a sense of purpose matched only by our SuperBloom endeavor.
Somehow a plague of butterflies is less freakish than a plague of locusts. But to give you a sense of scale, my subsequent google research revealed widely ranging number estimates – from 10 million to a billion Painted Ladies migrating north this year. That’s a lot of butterflies!
Final stop on the SuperBloom tour was Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve. We had actually been there 7 years earlier, thinking we’d wow my mum and dad who were visiting us from the UK at the time. With our very naive English outlook, we didn’t realize this whole thing about needing rain. So while there was the odd tiny splash of orange in the hedgerows around, at that time the poppy reserve itself was devoid of poppies. Not so on this trip, now this is what it’s all about. So mum and dad… these ones are for you!
