Spring Plants on the Sagebrush Discovery Trail

The Sagebrush Discovery Trail is a connection of two-track roads along ditches on the west side of Baker, Nevada. The Snake Valley Trails Partnership is working to improve the very rocky roads to make them more suitable for biking and walking. Right now you can take a jarring mountain bike ride or hike over loose rocks, but hopefully someday in the not-too-distant future you'll be able to push a stroller or have a kid ride a bike or an elderly person stroll along and not worry about tripping. On the map above, the purple line is the Sagebrush Discovery Trail, divided into several sections.

I often do trail runs on this trail, and if I have my phone with me, I stop and take photos of interesting sights. Since it's spring/early summer, one of those main things is flowers!

In March, I saw my first flower. For this and all the following identifications, I did my best, but am not 100% sure I'm right. If you know your plants and see a mistake, please let me know so I can learn!

It's not very large or colorful, but it is a flower! This little bit of joy is Ibapah spring parsley (Cymopterus longipes var. ibapensis). 

Something similar, but with a little longer and flatter leaves is wide-winged spring parsley (Cymopterus purpurascens), which is a frequent early plant below 9,100 feet.

It doesn't take long for the Ibapah spring parsley to go to seed, with purple seed pods.

These tiny erigeron pop up in just one place along the trail. They are compact fleabane (Erigeron compactus) and are still blooming a month after I first saw them.

This non-native red-stemmed filaree or common stork's bill (Erodium cicutarium) is much more common. The seed pods look like little swords, and the kids like to pick them and pretend to sword fight. This plant is the geranium family.

Variable Phlox (Phlox longifolia) decorates a few places, but the flowers don't last long.


This tansy mustard (Descurania sp.) goes to seed fast.

I bet you know this one! Good old common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale).

It is so pretty. And although it's non-native, the leaves are edible.

There are a number of shrubs along the way, including spiny hopsage (Grayia spinosa). The bush gets a beautiful pink glow to it when it's in bloom.

Check out how this spring parsley has pushed so far out of the ground. I've seen it move small rocks as it grows.

Indian paintbrush (Castilleja chromosa) is easy to spot. It often grows next to sagebrush.

Mormon tea or green ephedra (Ephedra viridis) is a distinctive-looking bush.

I was so excited to see this flower. I only saw two clusters. This is showy Townsend daisy (Townsendia floriflora).

Willow (Salix exigua) grows along many of the ditches.

Yellow pea (Thermopsis rhombifolia) is easy to spot. And apparently ants like it.

After nearly a week of rain, I went back out on the trail and found a mushroom! Wow, so unexpected.

Also, these beautiful asters (Aster species).

Equisetum or field horsetail (Equisetum arvense) grows right next to the creek. It's such a primitive-looking plant that makes me think of dinosaurs.

The Indian ricegrass (Oryzopsis hymenoides) has little seeds. It's a perennial bunchgrass, and as the name suggests, was used by the Indians.

Woods' rose (Rosa woodsii) is the only native wild rose in the area, so it's easy to identify. And it smells so good! Just watch out for those thorns.

 Morning glory (Convulvulus arvensis) is a non-native plant that drives me crazy in my garden. It apparently also grows when there's less moisture.

The bright orange globemallow (Sphaeralcea grossulariifolia) always makes me smile. We don't have many orange flowers, so this one is easy to identify. It occasionally blooms later in the summer if we get a lot of rain.

Ready to get out and see some of these flowers for yourself? The trail is on the primitive side, but it's beautiful!

Return to the Fire

 A couple weeks ago, the kids and I headed after school to Strawberry Creek, a place that had a big fire a couple of years ago. I was curious how things were recovering. The road is now open to the campground area in the pinyon-juniper area, although all the camping amenities have been removed because it's not that great an area to camp in right now, with everything black and no shade.

We stopped outside the park boundary and the kids headed towards the creek while I went up the ridge. I heard so many birds as I was walking. Finally I got a photo of one--a mountain bluebird.

Up on the ridge I found this metal lying against the tree. I'm not sure what it was.

I think this is a female Cassin's finch.

I really enjoy walking in burned areas. The meadow down near the creek made a stark contrast with the grey hillside behind it.


After awhile I headed back down to the creek. I found a lot more vegetation on the less steep slopes, like this American vetch (Vicia americana).

The Basin Wildrye was recovering nicely. That's the tallest native grass around, and I'll be writing a lot more about it this summer as I have a project to restore it.

I found the kids happily playing in the trees, Desert Girl with a hatchet and Desert Boy trying to fit something together. They seem to be happy to be outside, as long as they don't have to hike too far.

The Oregon grape made a bright contrast with all the black.

 But my happiest moment was seeing this little sagebrush. Not so long ago, all this area was dominated by sagebrush. It's so great to see it coming back.

They did lots of aerial seeding in this burned area, so hopefully we'll continue to see lots more vegetation and regeneration of the land.

Mid-Winter Hike in the Burbank Hills

 One Sunday afternoon in January we went out to the Burbank Hills for a family hike. We didn't really have any destination, we just thought we'd wander and look for fossils. We drove up a road, parked, and started hiking. The winter sunlight was gorgeous, backlighting the mat rock spirea (Petrophytum caespitosum). 

A bit further on we found a plant that made Desert Girl ponder. What was a yucca doing in the snow? This is Harriman's yucca (Yucca harrimanae), and it's scattered around the area. It can deal with some snow. We don't have any other species in the area; they prefer warmer climes.

Snow dusted the landscape as we looked towards Big Wash and the Snake Range.

We ended up setting a goal to get to the top of a ridge. It turned out we weren't on good rock for fossils (I hadn't taken time to consult the geology map), but it was still a fun hike.

The kids got to scramble a bit, which they always love.

Then it was down the other side. It was obvious which were the south-facing slopes by the lack of snow.

I wandered along the ridge, finding this huge opening. A new cave? Alas, no, there aren't any known caves in the Burbank Hills, but plenty of shallow shelters.

It wasn't a very long hike, but it does the soul good to go out and wander and explore. And it does the body good to go out and move and breathe fresh air. Here's to more outside time!

Dropping Seeds from the Sky

 When we went out for a Sunday afternoon family outing yesterday, we noted a helicopter south of town. We guessed that they were doing some aerial seeding on the area that burned last Fourth of July. On the way back from our hike, we pulled over and watched the helicopter flying back and forth.

Then we went down to the gravel pit to talk to the crew that was with the seed. I knew a couple of the folks, so we peppered them with questions.

The seed mix they're using has about 20 species in it, a mix of grasses, forbs, and shrubs. Some of the species are galleta grass, Indian rice grass, wild rye, hopsage, blue flax, yellow beeplant, kochia, and globemallow.

When the helicopter took off with one hopper, the truck drove up, and the crew loaded 600 pounds of seed into it.

The helicopter switched out hoppers about every ten minutes. They are applying 16,000 pounds of seed to this fire at about 20 pounds of seeds per acre.

Desert Girl got out to watch.

There's a little bit of snow still left on the ground, so hopefully that will help. We'll also need some well-timed rainstorms so that the seeds will germinate. Fortunately, some of the seeds will stay viable for many years, so even if conditions aren't just right this year, they may have a chance in future years. But once the cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) gets going, it's quite a force to be reckoned with it. And there's also concern about predation, mainly by rodents.

We're crossing our fingers this effort will work, as it would help restore about 800 acres to a wildlife-friendly ecosystem. Plus it would help reduce the probability of wildfire, as cheatgrass-dominated rangelands have a very short fire return interval, sometimes as short as just a couple years. We don't want wildfires that close to town on a frequent basis (or anytime!).

Thanks to everyone who is making this happen, we appreciate your efforts!