Mojave Desert Spring Wildflowers

I had the chance to check out some Mojave Desert wildflowers this week, not far outside of Las Vegas. It's the best wildflower display I've seen so far this spring. Apparently some spring thunderstorms dumped at just the right time. 

Here's a sampling of what I found while wandering around for about ten minutes. I wouldn't have minded spending a lot more time wandering--all those colors in the desert are such a wonderful show!

 Many of these beautiful yellow Desert Marigolds (Baileya multiradiata) dotted the roadsides.

We may appreciate their beauty, but many insects rely on these plants to survive. 

The globemallow (Sphaeralcea ambigua or coccinea) is a favorite of mine, with its orange blossoms. You don't see too many orange flowers!

 The creosote bushes (Larrea tridentata) are blooming, with tiny yellow flowers contrasting with their dark green leaves. Creosote bushes grow in some of the driest and hottest regions in North America. They are an evergreen, coping with drought by having highly varnished leaf surfaces that reflect sunlight, along with resins in the epidermis that can help seal the leaves against water loss. In order to avoid being eaten, the plant produces chemicals that make it undesirable. It's one of the few members of the Caltrop Family (Zygophyllaceae).

Another favorite is the Desert Trumpet (Eriogonum inflatum), so named because the stem bulges. If you look really closely this time of year, you can find tiny yellow flowers.


The lines on my fingers give you a sense of scale of just how tiny the desert trumpet flowers are.

Another plant with tiny yellow flowers is Mojave Ephedra (Ephedra fasciculata), closely related to Mormon Tea. The plant pictured above is a male bush--the female ones have different shaped flowers. I should mention that these technically aren't even flowers, they are small cones. Maybe I shouldn't mention that, because we should just enjoy their beauty!
(By the way, I didn't realize I had a smudge on my lens until I downloaded these photos. Sigh.)

Even from the road driving along at 70 mph (which was the speed limit), I could see the bright pink of prickly-pear cactus (Opuntia sp.). I adore flowering cacti--it is such a strange juxtaposition to see the delicate flowers on the spiny pads.

I think my heart quickened every time I found another cactus blooming. I don't think I could ever get tired of them.

As I wandered over the gravelly and sandy soil, I found little glimpses of color here and there from flowers that weren't nearly as large.

One was scarlet guara (Guara coccinea) in the Evening Primrose Family (Onagraceae). This perennial herb can grow up to 3 feet tall and has a mix of white and red flowers on a narrow raceme.

Mojave Yucca (aka Spanish Dagger; Yucca shidigera) played a center stage out on the desert floor, with two-foot tall inflorescences extending from a rosette of dagger-sharp leaves.

The flowers can be 1 to 2 inches across. Mojave yucca is the most common yucca found in the North American deserts. California Indians gathered and roasted the fruits and used the fibers extracted from the leaves for making blankets, baskets, and ropes.

I had to also stop for another member of the Lily Family:

The Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia). These are also blooming right now. I love these trees and their strange shapes;  seeing the flower clusters, plus some late afternoon sun on them with storm clouds brewing in the background made we wish I could hang out for hours. I'm afraid my photos didn't do them justice--oh well, I now have a good excuse to return!

Joshua trees are pretty much limited to the Mojave Desert (see little map in the sidebar and click on it to learn more about the four deserts in North America). Birds, rodents, lizards, and other animals all use these trees for a variety of purposes, including shade, food, and shelter.

Kudos to Ronald J. Taylor and his book Desert Wildflowers of North America, which helped greatly with this post.

Now go out and enjoy some spring wildflowers, where ever you are (and if you're south of the equator reading this, consider it an invitation to come visit!)

A Little Rock Climbing

 We happen to live less than an hour away from a world-class climbing destination, Ibex. On Sunday, we decided to make a trip out there. I dusted off my climbing gear. Back when I was in grad school, I climbed three days a week in the climbing gym and occasionally outside, but due to a long hiatus, I was feeling rusty. Very rusty. We had the book Utah's West Desert, which is an awesome guide to rock climbing, and which had inspired me. I found a route that was for kids. It was also a sport route, which I needed, as I don't have trad gear.

For those not familiar with rock climbing, sport climbing means you clip into bolts already placed into the rock, and you need less gear: rope, quickdraws (carabiners connected to a short piece of webbing), harness, and ATC. Trad (traditional) climbing has no anchors, so you have to have an assortment of nuts, camalots, and other gear that gets pricey fast, but lets you climb about anywhere.

We weren't entirely sure we had reached the climbing place we were searching for, because instead of two bolts we found a whole array of bolts. It was obvious this area is developing and people are putting up new routes. I decided we would play it extra safe and top rope. I scrambled up to the anchors at the top of the climb, threaded the rope through, and sent it down below. With top roping, as long as your belayer is awake, you won't fall more than a couple inches. Perfect for us novices. I climbed first and decided we definitely weren't on the easy rock the book described. I struggled a little, but eventually made it to the top.

Then it was time for Desert Boy to climb. He did a good job climbing, but said he felt a little scared.

When he got down, Desert Girl couldn't wait to give it a try. She did quite well, but wasn't too comfortable coming back down.

Even though it was a cool spring day, it felt hot on the rocks. I climbed again, then we packed up. I wandered down the cliffs to see what some other climbers were doing.

The rock looked beautiful!

I was happy to see some colorful milkvetch (Astragalus) blooming.

A rock wren hopped along the cliff, following me and serenading me.

This yellow member of the Carrot Family (Apiaceae) also lent some color to the desert floor.

It was a busy day at Ibex, with about ten other people there.

We were hungry and hot, so we went to the shade of the Red Monster (seriously, that's the name of the huge boulder!) and set up for a picnic lunch.

While the soup was warming, the kids and I some time to do a little bouldering. We all loved that.

Desert Girl conquers the boulder!

After lunch we felt reenergized and headed off for some more desert adventures, although not quite as fast as the pronghorn who ran in front of us on the hardpan.

I loved the feeling of climbing again, and we will be back to Ibex soon. Hopefully we will have better luck finding some really easy routes for the kids to help them build their confidence and skills.

A Little Hair Adjustment

 Desert Girl got creative with the scissors the other day. From the front, it wasn't instantly obvious (although note the varying length of ponytails on the right).

 But from the back, it was obvious she had gone a little overboard.

To make things worse, she cut even more the next morning!

Fortunately my friend Chandra was able to come over and do some emergency repairs.

Desert Girl didn't look too certain at the beginning of the haircut.


Chandra had her work cut out for her.

 Desert Girl has been well-trained by her babysitter to sit still to have her hair done, so she was really good for Chandra. By the end of the haircut and a few praises later, she was cheering up.

 All done! And very cute!

 Oh, my little girl is full of spirit. Her new haircut matches her attitude.

Time will tell if she's learned her lesson of not cutting her own hair!

Desert Destination: Rhyolite Ghost Town

After a night in pleasant Beatty, Nevada (which has trees and a very different feel from Tonopah--plus the public pool in the town park is great), we headed to the ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada. It was occupied from 1905-1920. After that, enough buildings remained that it became a popular backdrop for filming movies. It's one of the most scenic ghost towns I've seen.

I had been here before, and what I remembered most was the awesome bottle house built by Tom Kelly with. Most of the house is made from 50,000 green glass bottles, which provide insulation and a unique house. Nowadays a fence surrounds the entire house, so we couldn't get close to it. I was happy to see that it's still in good shape. It had been partially rebuilt in 1925 by Paramount Pictures for a movie. Nearby are a couple shaded campsites for volunteers.

So does that mean it's not quite a ghost town anymore if people live there?

We decided to tour the town by bicycle, which delighted the kids. It was early in the morning so we didn't see many other tourists, and the light was gorgeous.

The old bank--can you imagine constructing a three-story building in a mining town? They were high on hope that the ore would last!

Another view of the bank. Another three-story building in town is the school. Reports say that 250 kids attended school. When I think of early-day mining, I think of lone prospectors climbing through desolate desert canyons, but the reality of those early mining towns was quite a bit different. Lots of families made the trek to remote locations to make enough to eat and thrive.

Railroads made it possible for people to get around, and two railroads came into Rhyolite. The old railroad depot had a fence around it, as it's private property. Most of Rhyolite is managed by the BLM.


We checked out the old brothel. It was quite small, so there must have been others for a town that big.

All that was inhabiting the old brothel was a spider web.

The town may have had as many 5,000 residents during its heydey, and their trash is still around nearly a century later.

We enjoyed Rhyolite. It's easy to get to and is quite scenic. Here's more about its history.

What's your favorite ghost town?

Desert Destination: Tonopah Historic Mining Park

Ever been to Tonopah, Nevada? It's located out in west-central Nevada at over 6,000 feet. It looks a little desolate because it doesn't get much precipitation. It's cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and it feels raw, like you're in a wild place that just doesn't follow the rules of the normal world.

One of our big destinations of our recent trip happened to be in Tonopah: the Tonopah Historic Mining Park, which is dedicated to the reason of Tonopah's existence.

We stopped at the visitor center, paid the fee to go on the walking tour, and were on our way. We weren't quite prepared for what we were going to see.

Like open shafts descending 500 feet into the ground. Wow! I was trying to imagine the mine workers removing all that rock day in and day out (and probably many nights). The trails wove around 100 acres and many mines and mining materials. We soon found ourself in the park's main attraction:

We went into the Burro Tunnel, their reconstruction of a mining tunnel. It was really cool, seeing those big, heavy timbers, walking in the dim light. I would not have liked to have been a miner, a little spooky!


At the end of the tunnel we walked out on a platform and stood over the shaft that descended many hundreds of feet into the ground. Eesh! I like heights, but it felt a little strange to be over such a deep hole in the ground. I have to admit I was puzzled over the gate in the bottom of the platform--if it was moved over just a couple feet, it would have made for a much cleaner rappel. (Sorry, sometimes I get geeky like that!)



Then we continued walking around the grounds, taking in the Mizpah mine shaft and associated structures (the big red barn and headframe in the center of the photo). We looked down the grate there at a hole that goes one-quarter mile into the ground. I would not have liked to have gone down in the primitive elevator, hoping it would still be working at the end of my shift!

One sign said that the town of Tonopah still has some subsidences due to mining tunnels under it collapsing. I find that a wee bit worrisome!

We got a nice view of town as we climbed higher on the hills. It really is such a barren looking town!

Tonopah Historic Mining Park was well worth the stop. After walking around we went back to the visitor center and watched the video and checked out some of their exhibits. One of the things I found most interesting was that a woman, Belle Butler, was a huge reason that the mines had taken off in Tonopah.

So if you ever find yourself in Tonopah, treat yourself to a visit to the Tonopah Historic Mining Park!