Data are collected following the hiked path shown below and includes the immediate area.
One fertile flower (male or female), is all it takes to count a species in bloom.
We try to visit a lot of different areas, but areas with a better bloom may be visited more often.
It makes a huge difference if the bloom count is from a very dry badlands area, or from a place with a good rainfall or along a creek.
The data in the graph are averaged out over a couple of days, to show the actual daily bloom count in the graph, click on the legend on the right until only one is active (black).
With only one selected bars will pop up representing the daily bloom count.
Blooming annuals will be low this season, but we recorded the first germination March 17, we will get a cactus bloom by the end of March or more likely in April, but how good is still the question.
What you can find in bloom:
January, one of the best blooms ever Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo all over the desert, still going strong.
Early March -> early April Cochemiea dioica | Fishhook.
Mid-March -> April Agave deserti deserti | Desert agave.
April -> May Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus, probably not so good.
April -> A low annual bloom, concentrated around the hillsides, like Palm Canyon.
April - May -> Bloom at higher elevations seems to be better.
We finally ended the 315 day record drought around Borrego Springs with up to 0.4" of rain on February 13-14.
Rain total this year (March 0) 0.9" in Palm Canyon.
Probably not enough for many annuals and a good bloom, but much better than nothing.
In general, blooms are very to extremely low.
Places that are better:
By far the best bloom can be found in Coyote Canyon around Third Crossing.
Another better spot is Palm Canyon and the area surrounding Rainbow Canyon down to Blair Valley and Cool Canyon. (checked Rainbow 2/3/2025).
We needed a hike out of the wind, this hike worked well once we entered a side canyon.
By the time we got back the wind was almost gone.
As expected, the desert looks dry away from the creek.
One exception is the Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo, which is blooming even better than on our previous trip.
We have blooming Condea emoryi | Desert lavender and Larrea tridentata | Creosote bush, while Justicia californica | Chuparosa is nearing the end of its bloom.
Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus should be blooming any day now, and we have seen buds on some Opuntia basilaris basilaris | Beavertail.
We have diverse germination, but very sparse and the plants will stay small if they don't get eaten first by a desperate rabbit.
Along the creek with enough water it's a different story.
The creek is lined with dense non-native Melilotus indicus | Yellow sweet clover, mixed with many other non-native plants.
There are still a few native plants that have managed to grow.
The creek has often washed down plants like a good blooming Chylismia cardiophylla cardiophylla | Heart leaf suncup and a fresh Nicotiana obtusifolia | Desert tobacco.
We even found blooming Malacothrix glabrata | Desert dandelion, Eschscholzia minutiflora | Small flowered poppy and Chaenactis fremontii | Fremont's pincushion.
Bloom isn't the 100+ blooming plants in a good year, but 40+ isn't bad.
Temperature: 62-72, Sunny, sometimes a strong wind.
The goal today was to photograph the Myriopteris intertexta, coastal lip fern from Syd (borregodude) that was posted 2 years ago.
This isn't the best year to find it, but we did, we were happy with a single plant because it's on a steeper boulder site.
On our hike it was like time stood still, mostly the same plants were in bloom as a month ago.
The route we took was to turn left before the summit and loop down Burnt Pine, West Mesa and Fern Flat Fire Rd.
A bit long at 4 hours and an extra 1/2 hour for the fern.
At the top of the loop we found some remnants of snow, but all in all it was perfect hiking weather.
Most of the loop looks dry, but sometimes the soil is wet and there is germination.
Bloom was mostly absent with the occasional Arctostaphylos | Manzanita blooming.
We don't expect a good bloom this season without additional rain.
Temperature: 54-70 (95 Borrego Spring), Sunny, a refreshing breeze.
It gets hot in the low desert, so we needed something higher.
This time we took the easier Santa Ysabel Loop with a detour along Santa Ysabel Creek, a 3 1/2 hour hike.
It's drier than we wanted, some perennials are struggling and may have no or little bloom.
On the first stretch up from the Visitor Center the germination is not bad.
We were pleased to find many baby Phacelia parryi | Parry's Phacelia.
The pond was grazed, but some plants like Juncus bufonius occidentalis managed to bloom nicely.
At Santa Ysabel Creek we added most of our flowering plants, certainly not all native, but a nice bloom.
We were surprised to add a new plant to our list, a blooming Halerpestes cymbalaria. | Alkali buttercup.
Temperature: 74-82 (94 Borrego Spring), Sunny, sometimes a refreshing breeze.
It gets hot in the low desert, so we needed something higher. Google Maps shows 100 cars in the parking lot and along the road.
So we were surprised to be the first at 9 a.m. On our return there were 7 more cars.
This is a new hike to some waterfalls and it's a very winding road from Julian, hard to find without GPS.
It seems to be pretty dry at the top, but parts are really wet with lots of germinating plants.
Paeonia californica | California peony looked really stressed on our return.
We found a new fern Myriopteris newberryi | Newberry's lip fern in large numbers.
The creek has a good flow and the falls are really nice.
This should get a lot better in places with water.
We will try to come back in about 3-4 weeks and see what has happened.
Temperature: 73-82 (95 Borrego Spring), Sunny, sometimes a refreshing breeze.
It's getting warm in the low desert, so we wanted to check out one of our favorite hikes.
We didn't expect much, but there is native germination, mostly higher up.
Of the millions of non-native Erodium cicutarium | Red stem filaree, only a handful are in bloom.
Spots with less Erodium cicutarium produced a good variety of other germinating plants, many of them native.
The number of other germinating plants is still very low, but better than we feared, but not enough for a good bloom.
Many plants look like they are on the verge of death, but most are leafing out.
Like gray, barely recognizable Encelia actoni | Acton's Brittlebush.
Rhus ovata | Sugar Bush, suffer from the hot dry summer and hardly any plant will flower.
Prunus fremontii | Desert Apricot, on the other hand, when doing well, with a good general flowering.
We will try to come back in about 4 weeks and see what has happened.
March/21/2025 San Felipe Valley Wildlife Area (Banner C78 North West)
Warning: Access from CA-78 is prohibited, access from S2 only.
Things look much better away from the road, Banner Creek is even flowing in the upper part.
Beautiful flowering Platanus racemosa | sycamore maple with flowering Phoradendron macrophyllum | broadleaf mistletoe.
Unfortunately some invasive Tamarix ramosissima | Tamarisk blooming near the stream.
Marrubium vulgare | Horehound, although not native, has beautiful flowers.
A blooming Boechera perennans, but more will follow.
A single blooming Erodium cicutarium | Red stem filaree, but Erodium is one of the most common plants out here, so the fields should be in bloom soon.
The Prunus fremontii | Desert Apricot bloom is actually very good right now, with a great smell and lots of insects.
It's by far the best flowering plant right now. The stronger smelling Ziziphus parryi parryi | Lotebush is very close to flowering.
All in all germination is good, but often not native, looks very promising for the next months.
However, flowering is late and looks a bit drier than we like.
A flower walk led by Tom Chester.
Finally a place that looks promising with germination, flowering plants, and a promising number of plants weeks away from flowering.
After all the recent bouldering, we needed something easy, like this hike, which we haven't done in 9 years.
This is certainly a good hike with many nice canyons and a sand trap (bowl) that can be very good flower wise, but not today.
The best flowering plant by far is Larrea tridentata | creosote bush, some very green.
This is a good place to see that plants are much larger below ground than above.
Temperature: 60-74, Sunny, a breeze out of the washes.
Today's goal was to find Phacelia campanularia campanularia | Desert Bluebells skeletons.
After the ash layer it gets rocky to very rocky.
So we wondered if it was a good idea to go up the wash.
But suddenly several skeletons that could only be Phacelia campanularia campanularia, yes.
The flowering is low as expected, but we found germination of several different plants.
Unfortunately, 99.9% of them are Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard; Asian Mustard.
From above we got a good look at the bright green Lower Willows and Coyote Creek.
There is green along Coyote Creek, but mostly the bad kind of invasive green.
The most visible native plant is Encelia farinosa farinosa | brittlebush.
Temperature: 67-80, Partially sunny , almost no wind -> windy at the end.
Bloom: Low, 8+ different plants in bloom, away from the creek - 20+ including the creek.
As feared, flowering is very low, with the best flowering coming from Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo.
Most plants in bloom: Justicia californica | Chuparosa are at the end of bloom.
We found an almost yellow Justicia californica.
This is cactus country with lots of rocks and boulders.
It seems we will get a low cactus bloom, with some Cochemiea dioica , Fishhook in bloom and some Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus with flower buds.
There was a breeze and we smelled something sweet, like Bursera microphylla | Elephant Tree, finding it was following the smell in the direction of the wind.
This is a strong smelling tree from more than 100 meters away with a breeze.
It was nice to see several Carlowrightia arizonica | Arizona carlowrightia.
We were puzzled by the almost leafless Senegalia greggii | Catclaw Acacia, maybe that's the reason why we never saw the gal Tanaostigmodes howardii before, otherwise they might be hidden by the leaves.
We noticed a Euphorbia eriantha, beetle spurge, with fresh leaves making it a short-lived perennial.
Temperature: 55-70, Sunny, mostly windy bu no longer cold.
Bloom: Extremely low, 5+ different plants in bloom.
We needed a place with little chance of rain, which turned out to be everywhere, we got no rain this morning.
Going east reduces the chance of rain.
In general, we pick a hike that we hadn't done in a long time.
Like one of our oldest hikes (2012), last done 9 years ago.
The bridge is still there, the narrow slot is even better than we remembered.
New is a well-traveled trail leading out of the canyon.
We followed the trail and were able to loop into the larger slot canyon.
There is even a decadent ladder in the slot canyon that makes it easier to go the wrong way. Going down is easy, going up is more complicated.
Expectations were very low and we expected only a few flowering plants.
We were pleasantly surprised by the groundwater that brought things to life closer to the dry canyon wash.
Chylismia cardiophylla cardiophylla | Heart leaf suncup was high on our list of plants to find in bloom and here they were countless.
The first most abundant plant was Nicotiana obtusifolia.
We always keep an eye on Krameria, they can bloom unexpectedly, like a Krameria bicolor | White Rhatany almost in full bloom.
Even a few Psathyrotes ramosissima | Turtleback were struggling to bloom.
A bloom that is good for this terribly dry year.
Temperature: 52-57, Mostly cloudy, sometime a cold wind.
We had to stay on pavement after the recent rain.
Rain totaled 0.24" in Palm Canyon and zero germination on our hike.
The Borrego Badlands had a nice ground fog early this morning, this time from the rain.
Bloom is low as expected with several Agave deserti deserti | Desert Agave flower stalks, some ready to go within days.
Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo are leafing out again.
Who knows, the extra rain tomorrow might result in some plants germinating.
The weather report said it would be dry after 9 a.m., which turned out to be completely wrong.
In the afternoon, when it was supposed to rain, the sun was shining.
We hiked in on and off light rain, maybe 0.01" total.
The goal today was to relocate young Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus from 7 years ago and we found none.
The canyon is very dry and the flower count shows single plants, the best flowering plant is Condea emoryi | Desert lavender.
A few Peucephyllum schottii | Pygmy cedar looked happy, the rest in the canyon looked terrible.
March/10/2025 Carrizo West Fork Palms Second - Jacumba Jim Canyon
We needed a flower boost and this is a canyon with a reliable creek.
The road is always sandy and a bit rocky, most high clearance AWD should be able to handle with ease.
We were greeted by a couple of Meleagris gallopavo | Wild Turkey.
The canyon is rocky with mesquite obstacles, but probably easier than Hellhole Canyon.
There is water and lots of Washingtonia filifera | California fan palms.
I even went up the steep dry fall to the highest and only real palm grove.
This time I went straight up the waterfall, which was much easier than going around it.
Very pleased to see an abundance of flowering Mirabilis tenuiloba | Slender lobed four o'clock.
Another encounter of two different species of Lycium close together.
Our first flowering Agave deserti deserti | Desert Agave of 2025, many more to follow.
In the highest grove an abundance of flowering Encelia farinosa farinosa.
This canyon has one of the highest populations of Horsfordia newberryi | Newberry's velvet mallow.
Oddly enough, only in the lower part of the canyon.
As hoped, we had a record bloom in this extremely dry year. The bloom was concentrated along the bottom of the canyon.
The Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus are not as abundant, but larger, with good footing in the rocky soil.
We even found a rather large Ferocactus cylindraceus, about 2 meters 50, bent but standing firmly.
This is one of the largest Ferocactus cylindraceus in the Anza Borrego Desert.
More info on Ferocactus cylindraceus
The Carrizo wash is a super reliable Psathyrotes ramosissima | Turtleback, they are always there and easy to spot.
In fact, we needed a plant out of bloom, and here there were plenty, along with many happily blooming plants.
On the way down we had to brake hard for a coyote that crossed right in front of us, maybe the closest encounter we've ever had.
The Coyote looked our way as it expected us to brake.
Temperature: 63-80, sunny, no wind.
Bloom: Not bad, 28+ different plants in bloom.
The goal today was to find Mentzelia | Blazingstar sceletons, they are very common in the Badlands, but we found none here.
Maybe the difference here is that we found a lot of rat nests.
We found many interesting Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus.
Best flowering plants: Very good Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo, at the end of flowering Justicia californica | Chuparosa.
Another goal was to check the countless Agave deserti deserti | Desert Agave for plants without thorns.
From the beginning we noticed that the plants here have rather long spines, not a good start.
But we found our first ring of almost spineless plants.
And after a while 2 more rings, interesting to note that the plants are clones and the spines are as absent or sparse of all plants.
Agave have a great variety of spines, but in the rings they are all the same.
Temperature: 62-70, sunny with a light breeze.
Bloom: Very low, 4+ different plants in bloom.
March/5/2025 Bow Willows Rockhouse Canyon Loop East
This is the shorter version of the popular loop, still 4 hours with lots of rocks and boulders.
We were early enough to see most of the Asclepias | Milkweed in bloom.
17 plants in bloom is not bad, but often only one blooming plant.
Yes, our first blooming cactus, a few Cochemiea dioica | Fishhook in some bloom, but not many cacti producing buds.
Best blooming plant again Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo sometimes in spectacular bloom and some with green leaves.
Another good bloomer is Justicia californica | Chuparosa.
Even green Prunus fremontii | Desert Apricot with some in bloom.
It's humid, so it feels much warmer as you climb up the boulders.
Temperature: 64-73, partly clouded, almost no wind.
Wow this is a cool hike, one of the best, it's amazing that we've been able to make a loop here.
The hike is mostly easy, following Native American trails, a wash and a rocky decent into a narrow palm canyon.
At some point we looked down into a fork that was maybe 100 meter deep, straight down and we would eventually end up in that same canyon below a dry fall.
This is one of the best narrow slot canyons in the Anza Borrego Desert, way more spectacular than The Slot.
It rivals the Calcite mine canyons and this is way of the beaten track.
This is a fork of Palm Wash, but there is only one palm left in a very narrow canyon.
In 2017 we found 2 more dead palms, so the population must have been larger to get the name Palm Wash.
Temperature: 62-73, sunny, no wind - a light breeze.
A snow cover on the Ranchita Mountains, gone by noon.
There was a road closure in Sentenac Canyon, so this was our last minute choice.
I had never hiked this popular trail before, a short one hour in and out hike.
We did a loop and it was dry as expected.
The rocky part contains one of the densest Cochemiea dioica | Fishhook populations in the Anza Borrego Desert.
So dense that you have to watch your step.
The best bloomers are Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo, some in full bloom and many with buds.
Also very happy looking Larrea tridentata | Creosote bush.
Temperature: 54-60, sometimes sunny, windy, sometimes strong.
March/1/2025 A1 Blair Valley Granite Mountain Loop
We took the new alternative (A1) shorter loop.
Things look very dry, germination is extremely rare, some Erodium cicutarium | Red stem filaree and Acmispon strigosus | Bishop's lotus closer to the road.
The route follows a wash we've never visited before, nice enough for a revisit, maybe in April to see if anything is in bloom.
With lots of Dudleya arizonica | Arizona Chalk Dudleya and a large population of Opuntia engelmannii engelmannii | Engelmann's prickly pear.
Best flowering plant Phoradendron californicum | Desert mistletoe.
The weather looked bad, a full cloud cover at 7 a.m. in Borrego Springs, but at the destination it was a bit better with sun and a few drops of rain.
Temperature: 57-64, sometimes sunny with an occasional cool breeze.
We took the Alternative (3) loop from the campground a 3 hour loop, skipping the actual summit.
Our goal was the Phoradendron libocedri | Incense Cedar Mistletoe, we tried to find the plant 2 days ago despite several vouchers.
Now we had an iNaturalist observation.
We checked dozens of host plants around the observation, but found only this single host tree with several Phoradendron libocedri.
The whole area looks dry, but there is some germination, often too small to identify, non-native, native and grasses.
The soil is sometimes wet, but much drier than other years.
There was a futile and expensive attempt to remove all the Ceanothus palmeri | Palmer's Ceanothus.
This resulted in a perfect fire follower soil with the same dense Ceanothus palmeri | Palmer ceanothus mono culture and a good amount of large Eriodictyon parryi | Poodle dog bush.
Now it will probably take even longer for the Ceanothus palmeri to make way for other plants.
The weather looked bad, a full cloud cover at 7 a.m. in Borrego Springs, but at the destination it was mostly sunny.
Temperature: 56-67, mostly sunny with an occasional cool breeze.
A very warm breeze at the start and already 70 degrees in the morning.
We head towards Middle Peak on a road that gradually climbs.
Germination and regrowth is pretty good up to the middle of the climb.
Our goal today was to find mistletoe on Calocedrus decurrens | Incense Cedar and we found none.
There is a lot of Phoradendron leucarpum tomentosum | Oak Mistletoe on the oaks.
The flowering is still low as expected, but should improve as we get more rain.
We didn't plan to do a new hike, so the film will appear on our repeat hike.
Although there is water at Pena Spring, it looks pretty dry.
Most of the Rhus ovata | Sugar Bush will not bloom this spring, they look worse than we can remember.
The only good flowering plants are the two Ribes: Ribus quercetorum | Oak Gooseberry and Ribes indecorum | White Currant.
Another good smelling and flowering plant is Phoradendron californicum | Desert Mistletoe.
There is germination, but mostly grass and some non-natives.
Along the California Riding and Hiking it's much worse with only 2 plants in bloom, including a single Eriogonum fasciculatum polifolium | California buckwheat.
One of our favorite hikes in one of our driest seasons.
Peritoma arborea is in bloom, but doesn't look so fresh anymore.
Lots of footprints in the beginning and some nasty mesquite barriers that get denser and denser, after a while we made the only footprints as usual.
We've seen Dendromecon rigida in bloom over the years, and the plant looks healthy and large. We first photographed the plant in 2015.
While we got a respectable bloom, things look very dry, with some germination, grasses and non-native plants.
One of the happier plants Juniperus californica | California Juniper, several in full fruit.
The goal was to pick up skeletons, and Phacelia minor was right on the GPS location from a few years ago.
Not the same skeleton, but the plant came back to the same spot.
Look closely at the Bebbia juncea aspera, you notice a spider and prey.
Temperature: 75, sunny, no wind, a light breeze on the return route.
After finding a wider wash without any iNaturalist observations, we did a variation of the hike as a loop.
The bad, it's an hour plus drive on a bumpy wash "road", almost as far as you can drive into the South Fish Creek Wash.
Darn, lots of vehicle tracks along the "Foot travel only" sign, fortunately the washes are mostly inaccessible.
So far annuals and flowering plants were rare, to find them in good numbers was a nice change from the otherwise dry areas.
In the new narrow wash we hoped to find more Asclepias | Milkweed as these washes are generally their home, but we found none.
We did find two Asclepias albicans | White stemmed milkweed on the return wash, where we've been in previous years.
It was cool to find Asclepias albicans with flowers and developing fruits.
Lots of barely flowering Encelia farinosa farinosa | Brittlebush.
Good blooming Marina parryi | Parry's dalea and more than we usually see.
Another good flowering plant: Dalea mollissima | Downy Dalea.
Even a few blooming Allionia incarnata incarnata | Small Flowered Trailing Windmills.
And of course a good number (76) of Xylorhiza orcuttii | Orcutt's Woody Aster, some in bloom.
On our way back we wondered why we didn't see any annuals along the side of Fish Creek Canyon.
Yes, near the hike there were a number of flowering plants such as Chylismia claviformis peirsonii | Brown eyed primrose and Aliciella latifolia latifolia | Broad leaf gilia, these may be the only flowering plants of both species in the Anza Borrego Desert.
The best flowering plant is Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo, some in excellent bloom.
All in all, this is probably as good as it gets this year.
Temperature: 57-73, sunny, no wind most of the time.
We wanted to see if the rain that had hit Rainbow Canyon had extended all the way up to the canyons over there.
No sign of rain except for the green ferns.
The best bloomers, even before the rain, some in very good bloom Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo and some Justicia californica | Chuparosa.
We noticed that the Fouquieria splendens splendens was taller and more erect than usual out here.
A great find was the probably thousands of years old Agave deserti deserti | Desert Agave Ring.
This is one of the best loops in the Borrego Badlands with great views and great washes.
As is often the case, there is dust at the base of Fish Creek Mountain from the mine and the very sandy road.
As expected, we found no sign of recent rain, the ground is dry.
Things look very dry after almost a year without any significant rain.
The Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo disagrees, there must have been at least a small amount of recent rain.
Most of the Fouquieria splendens splendens are in flower, making it the best flowering plant here.
The next best is Atriplex hymenelytra | Desert Holly at the end of bloom.
On our way back into town we noticed dust devils around the airport, a very bad sign after the recent rain.
Temperature: 67-77, sunny, no wind to refreshing light breeze
The goal today was to get better photos of some plants, like Astragalus deanei | Dean's milkvetch, which we knew was in bloom.
We were really surprised to find Ericameria palmeri palmeri in bloom.
For the first time this year we found an area with germination and rain after the germinating plants.
But even here there was less rain than last season.
Temperature: 63-73, sunny, no wind to light breeze
Things look very dry as expected, it's not sure what effect the recent rain will have.
The best flowering plant here, Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo.
Our goal was to find Phacelia campanularia campanularia | Desert Bluebells skeletons for which we had a solid ID.
Unfortunately, we did not find any Phacelia.
Some of the most visible skeletons were Euphorbia eriantha | Beetle spurge and Diplacus bigelovii bigelovii | Bigelow's monkeyflower.
Temperature: 51-70, sunny, wind from none to a light breeze
Right after the rain, not much shows we actually got rain.
The water went at least 6 inches deep into the washes, not bad.
The goal today was to relocate the Senecio mohavensis | Mojave groundsel and it was a nice skeleton right on the GPS coordinates.
Oddly enough, most of the Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo have been in good bloom for a couple of weeks now.
And that was it, except for a few blooming Justicia californica | Chuparosa, Condea emoryi | Desert lavender and a single Eriogonum inflatum | Desert trumpet.
Temperature: 58-64, cloudy, occasional sun, wind from none to a good breeze
We needed a hike out of the "rain" and wind. The wind was no longer strong enough to blow sand into the air, so yesterday's dust cloud was completely gone.
At the beginning of the hike there was hardly any wind and it was even sunny from time to time.
The best flowering plants Ambrosia salsola salsola | Cheesebush in numbers and Asclepias subulata | Rush Milkweed in percentage of plants.
Another flowering plant is Larrea tridentata, a creosote bush that is flowering all over the desert at the moment.
We enjoyed the many desert skeleton plants from the good spring bloom of 2024.
We got a short drizzle in town, but no measurable rain and maybe a drop on the hike.
Temperature: 60-65, sunny, mostly cloudy, sometimes a breeze.
It was windy this morning, with a km high dust cloud coming out of Clark Dry Lake and lots of clouds coming over the mountains.
So something close like Palm Canyon seems like a good place to go.
We took the alternate trail and it looks dry as expected.
Good flowering Justicia californica | Chuparosa Condea emoryi | Desert lavender and Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo.
There was more water than expected flowing below the first palms.
Temperature: 56-63, sunny, mostly sunny, windy with wind gusts.
Another favorite hike that we have skipped for almost 7 years.
It's dry as expected, but several Fouquieria splendens splendens, Ocotillo were in bloom along the Thimble Trail.
An unexpectedly good bloomer Larrea tridentata | Creosote bush, 90% of the plants are in bloom and some very good.
In fresh bloom several Astragalus crotalariae | Salton milkvetch and some Xylorhiza orcuttii | Orcutt's woody aster in bloom.
Judging by all the dead plants, 2024 must have been a very good year here.
We were pleased to find more sites of Cleomella obtusifolia | Mojave cleomella, a somewhat rare plant.
It's clouded in town with a couple of rainbows on our way to June Wash.
A light intermittent drizzle from Plum Canyon up to Rainbow Canyon, with most of the "rain" in Sentenac Canyon.
June Wash is certainly better than most of the desert, there is a smell of goat cheese from the many blooming Ambrosia salsola salsola | cheesebush.
Many in bloom: Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo, Larrea tridentata | Creosote bush, and Asclepias subulata | Rush milkweed, to name a few.
This is certainly not a good bloom and we are missing most of the annuals to put things in perspective, but we were happy nonetheless.
The first goal was to check the Cylindropuntia fosbergii | Mason valley cholla with Carla from a few years ago, not much has changed.
No way, we took the wrong fork, too distracted by the Cylindropuntia fosbergii. This turned out to be a very good mistake.
It's really surprising to see that it's a very good year for Asclepias subulata | Rush Milkweed.
We were not looking for anything special and were really surprised to see two flowering Asclepias albicans Xsubulata | Hybrid Milkweed.
And a little further on two flowering Asclepias albicans | White stemmed Milkweed, this is the first time we've seen 3 different milkweeds in the same wash.
Another strange find, two very happy blooming Fagonia laevis | California Fagonia.
Temperature: 68-75, 60% cloud cover, a light breeze at the end.
A new hike to explore an area we've never been to before.
It's a little late, over 6 months after the rain, but there might be some Asclepias albicans Xsubulata | Hybrid milkweed in this area.
We found plenty of Asclepias subulata | Rush milkweed and Asclepias albicans | White stemmed milkweed, most in bloom, but no hybrids.
However, we stumbled upon a rather large (100) population of Xylorhiza orcuttii, Orcutt's Woody Aster, which slowed our pace considerably.
It turned out to be a good, fairly easy loop, completely free of vehicle tracks.
Damn, we found motorcycle tracks on the flat East Mesa.
Temperature: 70-78, Sunny, at times a light breeze.
We wanted to check out Chloracantha spinosa spinosa, Spiny aster that was found a month ago and may be the only known site in the Anza Borrego Desert.
The bloom is low along the edge of Coyote Mountain and absent further west along the dry creek.
We have too many hikes to choose from and haven't repeated one of the best hikes in 10 years until today.
Tom Chester reported a decent bloom a few months ago, we found the same thing higher up the wash at about the same time, and on iNaturalist we noticed a few flowering plants.
Still, the bloom is much better than we expected, certainly not good, but better than the rest of the desert, even 6 months after the rain.
We are mapping Cylindropuntia fosbergii | Mason valley cholla and climbed a bit to get to the edge of the population.
When we noticed a large Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus that we had to check out, it turned out to be 2.5 meters tall.
This one is probably more protected from the sheep, most don't get that tall and we found many damaged Ferocactus cylindraceus.
With all the detours and climbing it took us 4 hours to complete the loop.
The temperature is way too high for early February, 82 degrees at Scissors Crossing and two degrees lower at Borrego Springs.
We always do a variation of the original hike, this time a challenging 2 1/2 mile bush hike.
This is probably the area with the densest and largest amount of springs and seeps in the Anza Borrego Desert.
As expected, it looks bone dry, but the area was covered in snow less than a week ago.
The goal today was to photograph the dried-up Senecio flaccidus monoensis | Mono Groundsel, which we found, but only one plant.
With so many sources of water year round, there are a few blooming and happy plants.
You can hear the hidden stream flowing strongly, the stream is only a few hundred meters above ground and mostly hidden in the vegetation.
The best flowering plant Ribes indecorum | white flowering currant, many in good bloom.
We were a bit worried about the temperature, but it was actually warmer than in Borrego Springs today.
We wanted to go to one of the best flowering places in this otherwise desolate season.
It's surprising to see hundreds of blooming Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo along the road and on our loop hike.
Most of the Fouquieria splendens splendens have few flowers, but some are in full bloom.
Along the creek many Encelia farinosa farinosa | Brittlebush are in good bloom.
There is water in Second Crossing, it's hard to see how deep it really is, but we had more than enough clearance, not more difficult than usual.
It was busy at the parking, just before the closed gate, there is still no repair effort on Boulder Alley.
The creek is a strong flow and there are some plants in bloom, like Encelia farinosa farinosa | Brittlebush and a surprise, a blooming Castilleja foliolosa | Woolly Indian paintbrush, in a very unusual habitat with wet feet along the creek.
Other slightly flowering plants along the trail are Peritoma arborea | Bladderpod Bush and Justicia californica | Chuparosa.
Flowers are best along Lower Willows and in Box Canyon, not so good in Collins Valley.
We have skipped this favorite hike for a long time, mainly because the trail into Lower Willows has been gone for years.
Lower Willows is even closed, you have to make a little detour to the right.
The fork out of Box Canyon itself is not too difficult, but it requires careful hiking, often out of the main boulder wash.
On this route there are an unusually high number of small Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus and no really large plants.
Also many of the Ferocactus cylindraceus are damaged by sheep, probably the reason why the plants don't grow big.
Another cactus that is attacked more than usual, probably because there is less to eat, is Cylindropuntia ganderi ganderi | Gander's cholla.
I can't remember a year when so many Cylindropuntia ganderi ganderi had the outer layer of the branches and whole branches eaten.
We deviated from our route and went right to the main Coyote Wash, as expected, there was no water at all.
Happy to see some Lepidospartum squamatum | Scale Broom; California Broomsage at the end of bloom.
Due to the closure of Lower Willows we had to make a detour via Boulder Alley, which was a bit more than expected and resulted in a hike of almost 5 hours.
Besides being a long detour, the "road" is covered with softer sand, making the hike even more difficult.
The construction of the Boulder Alley road is high maintenance, maybe the reason why the park stopped maintaining it.
Pouring fine sand over the rocks is not the best idea, a little rain will wash it away easily.
Don't know why they didn't use gravel, which would last much longer, probably more expensive.
It seems that this deep canyon attracts more visitors as we found many footprints in the wash.
Still surprising to see so many Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo in bloom and in bud, we estimate 25% bloom in the lower part of our loop, dropping to single digits in the upper part.
Even the Condea emoryi | Desert Lavender is blooming, indicating that the plants are happier here than in many other places.
We think the Pilostyles thurberi | Thurber's Pilostyles are in bloom or very recently blooming, it's sometimes hard to see.
Another attractive plant at the moment is Ericameria paniculata, which will probably bloom for another week or two.
Unusual along the trail: Two happy young Krameria bicolor | White rhatany plants.
No happy plants along the dry Coyote Canyon creek.
Even without much recent rain, a number of seeps and groundwater are keeping the plants a little happier.
A few Larrea tridentata | Creosote bush, Xylorhiza orcuttii | Orcutt's woody aster are in bloom.
Many more Lycium brevipes brevipes are in sparse bloom.
It's nice to hike in an area with some flowering plants and interesting plant skeletons.
We are back on the skeleton hunt and have found all the target plants from spring 2024.
The most common plant by far is Sisymbrium irio | London rocket (all dead now) in huge fields.
Add another nasty plant to the list of Clark Dry Lake: Oncosiphon pilulifer | Globe chamomile, a few plants.
Interesting skeletons we found: Monolepis nuttalliana | Nuttall's poverty weed, Phacelia ivesiana | Ives phacelia, Eriastrum harwoodii | Harwood's woolly star and Dithyrea californica | Spectacle pod.
Temperature: 42-78, Sunny, no wind.
Bloom: Extremely low, 1+ different plants in bloom.
After finding two Asclepias albicans × subulata in bloom, we decided to look for more.
We found more Asclepias subulata | Rush milkweed in bloom than we ever remembered seeing.
And as a bonus, we found a single Asclepias albicans × subulata.
Taking a detour to the much happier plant from our previous visit here to take a voucher, this may be the first record in San Diego County.
This makes a total of 3 confirmed Asclepias albicans × subulata in the area.
This is a mostly wash road hike, with tire tracks going into every possible wash.
We hiked clockwise and the first wash looked like a high flow wash with not too many plants in it.
The next smaller wash is filled with more plants, but is also a tire track wash.
All in all a good bloom for the time of year and this seems to be the middle of a summer thunderstorm as we found Pectis papposa papposa | chinch weed out of the wash.
The drive up to the trailhead is long with over 40 minutes in the wash, the wash road itself is surprisingly good.
All along the way the washes are filled with countless blooming Ericameria paniculata | Blackbanded rabbitbrush, the most beautiful bloomer at the end of the year.
We made a detour to shorten this longer hike and still ended up with a hike of over 4 hours.
Temperature: 53-76, Mostly sunny, no wind.
Bloom: Low, scattered 25+ different plants in bloom.
After noticing Ericameria palmeri palmeri | Palmer's goldenbush in bloom here, we had to go.
We made a detour (route A1) to look for Tetradymia comosa | Hairy Horsebrush and added two new plants to our list.
Surprised by the flowering, which was a bit better than on our last visit, we even found a flowering Xanthisma junceum | Rush like Bristleweed.
And we didn't expect, but hoped to find Jepsonia parryi | Parry's Jepsonia, and we did find a single flowering plant in the shade.
The detour made our walk a little longer, just under 4 hours.
Temperature: 62-75, Clear blue sky, sunny, no wind.
This time we wanted to have a sure and recent locations of Chaenactis fremontii | Fremont's pincushion and we found several recognizable plants.
We were able to find most of our target plants, which was a good check to see if our GPS points were indeed accurate.
We even found the single Rafinesquia californica | California Chicory intact.
It's not visible in the dry area, but there must have been some summer rain because we found a recognizable, still yellow Lasthenia gracilis | Common goldfields flower.
Good blooming at the top of the hike Ericameria brachylepis , Boundary goldenbush and scattered around the hike blooming Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo.
Once again an area with a good recent bloom of Fouquieria splendens splendens.
Temperature: 50-67, Thin cloud cover, a light breeze at the highest point.
We smelled creosote in Borrego Springs, there is a lot of moisture in the air, so it feels warmer.
Looking for plant skeletons. Some plants persist for half a year or more.
We found no trace of the giant spring 2023 Mentzelia involucrata | Sand blazing star and others.
The main plants we found were Antirrhinum confertiflorum, Phacelia pedicellata and Phacelia distans.
Both canyon washes are filled with hundreds of Horsfordia newberryi, many of them quite large.
There are many more tire tracks in the canyon just past the big "No Vehicle" sign, this and the many footprints made the hike much more difficult than usual.
The goal today was to find the remains of Cleomella obtusifolia | Mojave cleomella and we found several larger plants.
We looked at a desolate Psorothamnus emoryi | Emory's indigo bush with Pilostyles thurberi | Thurber's pilostyles.
Pilostyles thurberi are supposed to bloom in January, but we took a closer look and wow, they were in bloom, we found a total of two host plants, with blooming Pilostyles thurberi.
Temperature: 64-74, mostly sunny -> sunny, almost no wind.
We switch from beautiful flowering Isocoma acradenia eremophila | Toothed leaved alkali goldenbush to even more spectacular flowering Ericameria paniculata | Blackbanded rabbitbrush.
There are many Ericameria paniculata in bloom here, probably all over the Anza Borrego Desert.
It's very unusual for us not to be able to identify Asclepias subulata | Rush milkweed and Asclepias albicans | White stemmed milkweed from a distance.
Looks like we have hybrids here that may be poor flowerers.
Finding two Encelia farinosa X frutescens | Hybrid Brittlebush in bloom in two different washes made our day complete.
In the wide Diablo Canyon most of the Psorothamnus spinosus | Smoketree are in bloom, but not the more spectacular spring bloom.
There are several more Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo in bloom, and from the looks of it, the bloom was good a few weeks ago.
Some of the smaller Fouquieria splendens splendens are clearly rabbit food, looking at the bite marks they resemble the ones we see in our yard on our water hose.
Although the bloom is low, it is probably as good as it gets this time of year.
Temperature: 51-76, mostly sunny -> sunny, almost no wind.
The first part is shady, perfect for these higher temperatures.
We hiked the Cuckwalla Wash this spring, but not the actual loop.
The goal was to track some plants that would be dead by now and a small Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo.
The top segments of the small Fouquieria splendens splendens are often eaten, so they won't grow until they get big enough, and then they should grow rapidly.
On the loop it's the driest we've seen this fall, but surprisingly there are 3 Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo in bloom.
Lower in the desert we find more skeletons, like hundreds of Nemacladus | Threadplant.
We were even able to relocate some dried but recognizable Eriophyllum wallacei rubellum.
On our way back to the car, we suddenly saw a few happily blooming Justicia californica | Chuparosa.
It's always a surprise, it was 54 degrees in town and you would think it would be colder up in the mountains.
But as we go up the Montezuma, the temperature rises, probably because the sun gets there earlier.
The goal was to find the skeletons of the plants we found in the spring. Now we know that most plants leave no trace, the only target plant we found was Leptosyne californica | California Coreopsis, in several locations to make a solid ID.
Most common skeletons, some still alive: Eriastrum sapphirinum sapphirinum | sapphire woolly star.
An interesting find, a Phoradendron californicum | Desert Mistletoe on Simmondsia chinensis | Jojoba, we've seen this before, but it's still a rare find.
Of the hundreds of dry-looking Bahiopsis parishii | Parish's goldeneye, we found only one flower, and one that barely made it, no energy left to make a ray flower.
There's a lot of Monardella linoides linoides along this loop, but we've never seen one in bloom here, now we've found a single flower.
In spring we found a strange Cylindropuntia ganderi ganderi | Gander's cholla that is a bit larger, we think this plant has been damaged by rodents.
It's been over 10 years since we've hiked this particular route, so it's long overdue.
It is like entering a forest with some of the largest Olneya tesota | Ironwood trees in the Anza Borrego Desert.
Along with Psorothamnus spinosus | Smoketree and Senegalia greggii | Catclaw Acacia.
This is confusing, no annuals like Pectis papposa papposa | Chinchweed or others, but hundreds if not thousands of Boerhavia wrightii | Wright's spiderling, many still in bloom.
Only the Justicia californica | Chuparosa plants are in good bloom, the other plants show some bloom now and then.
All in all a pleasant and much easier hike than the Alma Wash next door.
The goal today was to relocate the Calycoseris wrightii, white tackstem, and Rafinesquia neomexicana, desert chicory, that we found in bloom this spring.
Wow, we were able to relocate 75% of the plants, that's pretty good with wind, rodents and insects to remove them.
Again Fouquieria splendens splendens, Ocotillo in bloom with little or no rain. Looks like they had a pretty good general bloom in this area recently.
We are on a dead plant hunt and Monoptilon bellioides | Desert Star and Chorizanthe corrugata | Wrinkled Spineflower were a nice bonus.
We had some rain last night, heavy but too short to be measurable.
Another third hike, now looking for dead plants, this time taking the loop further north.
One of the targets was a huge Baileya pauciradiata | Laxflower, not much is left, but what is there is very recognizable, another dead plant that stays hairy after the summer heat.
We had to check the Ambrosia Xplatyspina | Hybrid Ambrosia found in the spring of 2024, which was still very much alive. We checked for others, but found none.
Last time we had problems with Abronia villosa villosa | Desert Sand Verbena, the dried inflorescence looks strange.
The first 3/4 hour we found zero flowering plants, but we picked up more and more with even a Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo and Justicia californica | Chuparosa in bloom.
It's nice to make IDs on dead plants, but we long for plants that are more alive early next year.
The rain today was not measurable, just a few drops during the morning.
There was a big cloud of dust at the base of the Fish Creek Mountains, so this is the dustiest road in the area.
This was an accidental last minute choice, it was colored blue as fairly easy, but the description mentioned dangerous parts.
It was, quite steep and slippery, we will not repeat this loop.
The bloom was as expected quite low, but the Fouquieria splendens splendens, Ocotillo had and still have some bloom, even with little or no rain.
The hike was sunny, but there was plenty of shade in the deep canyons.
Temperature: 57-64, sunny, some wind.
Another record breaking loop, this was the third time this year.
There is a report of 5" rain in August, we doubt it was 5", we found some germination in the main wash, but not as much as you would expect after so much rain.
On the hike we found no germination at all, we have now explored most of the area around Whale Peak, the direction of the rain, but are puzzled by the fact that we haven't found the source.
The rain must have fallen on a fairly small area, the guess now is close to the Mud Palisades, but almost certainly not very much.
What we know so far is that the runoff was only from the Fish Creek Wash, not the Carrizo Wash, and only a little on the Canebrake side, which also drains into the Carrizo Wash.
Our goal today was to find dead Geraea canescens | Desert Sunflower and Eriogonum ordii | Fort Mohave Wild Buckwheat.
Geraea canescens was easy because the plants are everywhere and still very recognizable, it was to make sure that our ID in the Ant Hills was indeed Helianthus petiolaris canescens.
Eriogonum ordii was just as easy as we first entered an area with only Eriogonum ordii.
Eriogonum ordii was easy to recognize, but this is much harder to see from a photo.
We had a 100% score with the following key: Not inflated, appressed hairy on lower stem, we were surprised to be able to identify them so easily.
Our record-breaking loop, this is the third time this year
This time we wanted to collect some photos of dead plants.
This is the highest concentration of Helianthus petiolaris canescens | Gray Desert Sunflower that we know of, so we needed good photos of dead plants.
Next on our list were Chaenactis | Pincushion and Lupinus shockleyi | Desert Lupine.
We easily found all except the Lupinus shockleyi in the dense fields of Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard; Asian Mustard.
Towards the end we couldn't identify any of them even though we knew we had walked over hundreds of plants, but suddenly a few plants with the ultimate proof of persistent cotyledons.
A nice bonus was a larger Stipa hymenoides in fruit.
Another reason for the lack of plants are the countless hungry rodents that build tunnels all over the desert, they are certainly a hiking hazard that can sink quite deep.
While there is no sign of recent water, we find large green Dicoria canescens | Desert twinbugs everywhere.
An Eriogonum deflexum deflexum was in exceptional bloom.
We certainly have the right time of year for blooming Asclepias subulata | Rush Milkweed; we found most of them in bloom on our hikes.
Isocoma acradenia eremophila is a very consistent bloomer, rain or none.
November/11/2024 Marty Minshall - Los Vaqueros loop
Wow this looks dry and after 1 hour we still had no flowers.
Finally, near the furthest point of the walk, we started to get some flowers, in individual plants and only occasionally.
The aim was to check the spike rushes, but there was hardly any water, so we will try again next year.
In August we noticed a Facebook movie of a well flowing stream in Box Canyon.
We noticed Pectis papposa papposa along the road.
Tom Chester hiked the western part of the loop we did, breaking the loop in two by hiking over a saddle.
Tom's plants looked better than in other parts of the desert, so we wanted to check it out and record the shortcut for our hiking page.
We did indeed find thousands of Pectis papposa papposa | chinch weed in large fields that were in full bloom a few months ago, now only a fraction are in bloom.
There are lots of nice smelling Porophyllum gracile | Odora and the desert smell of Adenophyllum porophylloides | San Felipe dogweed.
The bloom is low, but this is still one of the better places to find plants in bloom right now.
The wash road is sometimes rocky, but good for a park road.
It looks very dry.
It was good that we were interested in dry plants.
We found an unusually high number of good looking dry plants, like hundreds of brown Chorizanthe rigida | Devil's spineflower from last spring, unusual to see them with so many leaves and brown instead of black.
And Langloisia setosissima setosissima with recognizable flowers.
We also found our target plants in large numbers: Eriogonum thomasii and Eriogonum trichopes, mostly in the washes.
Temperature: 56-70, sunny, no wind.
The plants along the road look very happy, one reason to hike here.
It was quite foggy in Borrego Springs and on the hike it was still foggy but sunny.
We walked along the Cylindropuntia fosbergii | Mason valley cholla to map the outline, in this part of their habitat they migrate unusually far south and upstream.
Cylindropuntia fosbergii looks very good, this must be close to the perfect habitat.
As in many places, Isocoma acradenia eremophila | Toothed leaved alkali goldenbush is in late flower.
Krameria bicolor | White rhatany at the end of what looks like a good bloom.
This time of year we have an unusually high number of flowering Agave deserti deserti | Desert agave, most of them at the end of flowering.
Along with a rather good end of year bloom of Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo, some still in bloom throughout the park.
In contrast, Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus show the lack of water.
On iNaturalist we noticed a blooming Datura discolor | Desert thorn apple, indicating summer rain.
This is an interesting, scenic short loop hike that never gets boring.
We found several Asclepias albicans in bloom.
Lots of monsoon follower Pectis papposa papposa | Chinch weed and even a single Amaranthus fimbriatus | Fringed amaranth.
The monsoon plants are concentrated along and in washes, so the water probably came from further upstream.
We found the Lycium fremontii | Fremont's desert thorn in bloom and took a lot of photos and on each one the flower looks a little different.
Finally at the parking lot a single blooming Psathyrotes ramosissima | Turtleback made our day.
Note parking is no longer free, the parking fee is $10.
Temperature: 65-73, sunny, some wind.
Today the forecast was for a slight chance of rain and wind. We got no rain and almost no wind, although the wind picked up later in the day.
From the start things don't look too bad, we got a couple of plants in bloom, but as we entered the Glorietta trail, thing got a lot worse.
It looked very dry on the rest of the hike.
Wildlife was a bit desperate eating parts of the Cylindropuntia ganderi ganderi | Gander's cholla.
As well as Justicia californica | Chuparosa that's very low on the to eat list, we rarely seen it eaten.
It was interesting to see the rudimentary leaves on Encelia farinosa | Brittlebush, the leaves are ready to go as soon as the plant gets enough water.
There are probably several plants that make leaves in advance, Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo already has leaves for the next rain.
We finished the hike in an unusual 2 hours, leaving us time to check out the plants at the water treatment plant.
What we found was a spectacular bloom of a large number of larger Wislizenia refracta palmeri.
Mixed with very good blooming large Isocoma acradenia eremophila | Toothed leaved alkali goldenbush and a Lycium brevipes brevipes | Common desert thorn in full bloom.
It looks like the water diverted from Rams Hill ends up here, confined by dikes on either side.
We wanted to continue on the Fish Creek Wash "road" that we left on October 21, 2024.
The goal was to see what happened after the torrential flow of the wash after the August 11, 2024 thunderstorm.
As expected, we found many Euphorbia abramsiana | Abrams' spurge, expanding our mapped range.
After the right summer or spring rain, Euphorbia abramsiana is one of the most abundant Euphorbias.
Much more common is Pectis papposa papposa | Chinchweed and in this area Tribulus terrestris | Puncture Vine is quite common.
The deep wash ends in a flat area, and here the wash flows over a flat area that is miles wide.
On the return hike, there are hardly any visible washes as the water spreads out over a large area.
We were early enough to miss the off-roaders in the Fish Creek Wash.
Wow, it looks dry, except for a blooming Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo on our drive to the hike.
We estimate that at least 1/3 of the Fouquieria splendens splendens has recently flowered, with a handful still in bloom.
This is certainly a general flowering of Asclepias subulata | Rush Milkweed, we found several, almost all in good bloom.
They are also food for rabbits, which can't resist such green plants.
This all points to a summer rain, but too long ago, too little and too warm.
This was a short hike, so we explored some drainages towards the East Butte, making it a 3 hour+ hike.
It is unusual that there is no water at all at Second Crossing.
But there is a good amount of water at the closed gate. We expect the gate to remain closed for a long time, as the road is difficult to rebuild and almost every year the damage to the road is severe and most likely costly.
Since the creek has moved east, many plants are dying where the creek used to be and new plants are growing where the creek is now.
It's unusual to see Lythrum californicum | California Loosestrife out in the open and not hidden in dense vegetation and in such good bloom.
What's unusual this year are the huge, very green Dicoria canescens | Desert twinbugs, like at the dry zero crossing.
The summer rains were enough to trigger the flowering of many perennials, like the dozens of Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo near the end of flowering.
Most, if not all of the Chilopsis linearis arcuata | Desert willow along the mostly dry creek are in bloom.
This is the first time we have seen Atriplex lentiformis in bloom.
Along our route the bloom was extremely sparse, with only about 3 different plants.
Strange that in this otherwise dry place we recorded the record bloom of the season.
Temperature: 73-80, 50% sunny, a pleasant breeze.
Bloom: Very low, not that bad around the creek at third crossing, 30+ different plants in bloom.
On our last visit we didn't have the time or energy to check out the rest of the loop.
One of the goals was to visit a Carex patch where we found many Carex senta | swamp sedge.
We added some new dead plants to our list of new plants.
One of the most abundant plants was Toxicodendron diversilobum | Poison Oak, large small, green, reddish, leafless.
Maybe we will get used to the insects and go into automatic waving mode, they were not that bad and now and then they were gone.
This is a scenic hike along 2 tiny "lakes", one dry, the other filled with water.
Prime Adenostoma sparsifolium | Red shank terrain, with very old and perhaps young plants.
Maybe because Adenostoma sparsifolium can grow back from it's root and looks like a young plant.
At the beginning a number of planted Pyrus calleryana | Callery Pear.
Except for the lake, there are signs that it's been wet at some point in the year, right now the whole area is at it's driest.
This is also prime Opuntia chlorotica | Pancake Prickly Pear terrain, growing happily in large numbers, not sure if we know a place with so many plants.
Really amazing that we still found so many flowering plants and even a few Adenostoma sparsifolium a bit in bloom.
Temperature: 52-80, sunny.
We parked at the pound and made a loop further north than indicated on the map.
The goal for the day was to get a better ID of the Carex senta | swamp sedge we found last time, we found more plants and made a positive ID.
The next goal was to check the Phleum pratense | Timothy grass.
It's less wet and there are fewer flowering plants compared to last year.
At the beginning we didn't see any small insects, but unfortunately they were present on some parts of the hike.
The insects were not as bad as last year, lets say slightly annoying but not stinging.
On our way back the road was closed due to a downed power line, as we came in we wondered about the wires dangling lower than usual.
It would take hours to fix, so the road stayed closed, probably for the rest of the day or more.
The only option was an extra 1 1/2 hour drive on the dusty dirt road, in itself a good thing because we added a couple of new plants.
All in all we added 6 or 7 new plants to our list, none of them in bloom.
A loop along the West and East Side Trails to check 2 iNaturalist observations, Agrimonia gryposepala | Common Agrimony, which we've never seen before, and Helenium puberulum | Rosilla, which we've never seen in the park.
Surprisingly, we found both plants.
Sweetwater River is a small stream, more like a creek at our northernmost crossing.
Unusual, hundreds of Verbascum thapsus, great mullein, on the flat banks next to Sweetwater River.
October/21/2024 Tarantula wash San Felipe creek loop
The maybe 5" of rain from Fish Creek ends up in San Felipe Creek, so we went there.
This is always one of our favorites and it's very dry except for the creek and some of the drainages.
At first it looked desolate, but we found more and more blooming plants left and right and even many blooming Euphorbia abramsiana | Abrams' spurge.
We noticed what was probably a 3 meter + flash flood.
An unexpected bloomer was Cucurbita palmata | Coyote melon, all in all a record bloom this season.
It's probably worth exploring the wash further upstream.
There must have been a lot of summer rain, we've never seen the wash this sandy.
The plants don't look too bad after the summer heat and most of the Chilopsis linearis arcuata | Desert willow in Fish Creek Wash were in bloom.
This is always a nice hike with lots of variety even without flowers.
On our hike we noticed 1 1/2 meters of flooding from the August rains, some say 5" of rain in the area.
We found blooming Boerhavia triquetra intermedia | Fivewing spiderling and Pectis papposa papposa | Chinchweed, a clear sign of summer rains.
This is one of the few places where Xylorhiza orcuttii | Orcutt's woody aster grows well outside the washes in sand/mudstone.
After the rain, there are even fewer signs than usual, and we encountered cars that were headed for the Wind Caves but ended up near Sand Stone Canyon.
Unbelievable how unprepared some people are, at least they didn't take the Diable Dropoff exit.
On our way back it was incredibly busy with a convoy of 30+ cars heading towards the Wind Caves.
Warning:
The wash is certainly not suitable for 2 wheel drive, there was one car that got stuck early in the wash.
Even we had problems in the sand up to the trailhead. This is one of the few times I had to push the throttle all the way in first gear and still barely made it.
I thought about lowering the tire pressure, but that's a double-edged sword because we really needed the ground clearance.
There was quite a drop near the Loop Road where we really needed the clearance and there are a lot of rocks buried in the sand.
It had rained the night before just past Ranchita, so we got our shoes and pants wet, an unusual occurrence at the moment.
This time we found a better route, following a creek and looping around the pond.
The strong smell of Trichostema lanceolatum | Vinegar weed mixed with Croton setiger | Dove weed was actually nice along the whole loop.
This may be the largest population of Trichostema lanceolatum that we know of.
This certainly warrants a return trip in the spring of next year.
Second stop Lake Henshaw, where we walked along the lake, the shore is very green this year.
Here we found a new plant for us, the invasive Lotus tenuis | Narrow-leafed Bird's-foot Trefoil.
October/17/2024 Ironwood Wash Vallecito Creek loop
Things look greener from Blair Valley up to Rainbow Canyon with some Pectis papposa papposa | Chinchweed (end of bloom) and some blooming Bahiopsis parishii | Parish's goldeneye.
Opposite Rainbow Canyon another recent fire, much smaller than the 2021 fire.
Much greener again from Rainbow Canyon down Campbell Grade. Opposite Campbell Ranch lots of blooming Pectis papposa papposa and very green Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo, but the green drops off considerably towards Aqua Caliente.
We wanted to fill a gap in our hiking map and explore a drainage west of Ironwood Wash.
Things look better than expected, green and some blooming Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo and Agave deserti deserti | Desert Agave.
Higher up the wash it gets even better with some blooming Pectis papposa papposa.
On our return we were really surprised by the happy blooming Justicia californica | Chuparosa, they look very green, as good as it gets.
The goal today was to check on the Pinus californiarum | California Singleleaf Pinyon.
The condition of the Pinus californiarum is good, with many happy green trees and best of all many younger trees.
The previous ID of the trees was Pinus monophylla and we wanted to confirm the new Pinus californiarum ID.
Along our route there may be one of the largest continuous stands of Coleogyne ramosissima | Blackbush.
Clear evidence of recent flowering from the 2024 summer rain: Larrea tridentata, Agave deserti deserti (almost in bloom), Fouquieria splendens splendens (in bloom), Krameria bicolor and probably more.
Probably no or hardly any annuals from the summer rain.
We noticed Nicotiana attenuata | Coyote Tobacco on iNaturalist and that was our goal today.
We almost missed the plant, but surprisingly it was still in good bloom, even when we returned 4 hours later.
While taking pictures Carla was stung and we backed off, it seems we were very close to a nest.
Next stop was Centaurium tenuiflorum | Slender Centaury and we found a single plant with a good flower.
We had found Juncus dubius | Mariposa Rush for the first time a few days earlier, but here was a good flowing plant that made our day.
Next stop, just past the interstate, to look for Cistus creticus | Hoary Rock-Rose, we've never seen it before, now we have to find it in bloom.
We loosely followed the Secret Canyon Trail and made many side trips along Pine Creek.
On the way back we took a dirt road back to the parking lot.
If you want to park at the official parking lot, you need a National Forest Adventure Pass.
The aim was to find Eriogonum evanidum Vanishing Wild Buckwheat, but we knew it was probably too late.
All we found was a mostly barren area, used by rodents and overrun by campers.
The first part of the walk is chapperal, green but without flowering plants.
Crossing the road at the viewpoint we came across one of the few bright spots, with several flowering plants.
From the buckwheat site we went more or less cross-country, probably following pastures and an old dirt roads.
We found a suspicious buckwheat, but it was probably just Eriogonum gracile gracile.
Next on our list were a few places along the coast.
Much cooler and a bit foggy when we arrived, the plants looked a bit better.
We were pleased to find Artemisia californica | California Sagebrush in bloom, one of the flowering plants we had been looking for.
On our last visit in spring we had a hard time finding Euphorbia misera | Cliff Spurge, here we found several flowering plants that looked very different to the ones we found last time.
The whet area produced interesting plants, more related to the salty Borrego Springs areas.
We had some extra time to revisit the Mission Trails, much warmer as we climbed a hill and looking very dry.
It's still hot in Borrego Springs, so it's a good time to find something cooler.
The aim was to find new plants in the Mission Trails area.
When we arrived it looked bleak, as if we would find nothing new.
But gradually we added new plants and plants we had not seen flowering before.
One of these was Helenium puberulum, which we had failed to find on several of our walks in the Laguna's.
One of our goals was to find another Tarweed, Deinandra paniculata, San Diego Tarweed, and we found a bunch in bloom at a known site.
All in all we found 10 plants that were new to us and in flower no less.
Heat warning signs on all trails, but this is considered cooler than our previous hikes.
The goal was to find Deinandra mohavensis | Mojave tarplant in bloom and that turned out to be easy, the plants are blooming in most sandy washes.
As expected, it's unusually dry everwhere we go, the only water was present in the steep rocky part at the end.
This is certainly an interesting area to follow up after rain.
After the hike, we followed the rough dirt road up to Chihuahua Valley Rd.
Temperature: 66(8:30 a.m)-83(10 a.m.), sunny, almost no wind.
The goal was to find new plants before the heat toasted them.
We left Borrego Springs very early at 6:30 a.m., arrived just before 8 a.m., and hiked counterclockwise to get some shade on the last part of the hike.
The bloom was much worse than expected and a far cry from the good spring bloom.
This is certainly the year to see Erythranthe cardinalis | Scarlet Monkeyflower, here we found the largest population so far, covering the creek almost endlessly.
We were happy to record at least one new plant Xanthisma junceum | Rush like Bristleweed, with a good number of flowering plants.
Normally the creek is much too wide to cross, but now it was dry and we could hike cross country to Espinosa Creek. There was some water here, but not enough for anything new.
October/6/2024 Boiling Spring Escondido Ravine Loop
This could be the warmest day of the month, with 112 degrees predicted. So we choose early and high.
The goal today was to check out Eriogonum umbellatum munzi | Munz's sulphur flower, there is a recent observation at the voucher location.
We were worried about the timing and the heat this year, but we found several plants and some in reasonably good bloom.
For this occasion we made a new loop along the target plant. The rocky Escondido Ravine drainage is a nice place in a wetter year, we didn't find any significant water along our route.
Best flowering plant along the route: Epilobium canum latifolium | California Fuchsia.
October/5/2024 Green Valley Falls - Sweetwater Loop
It's over 110 degrees in Borrego Springs and even here it's pretty hot.
We shortened our loop and did a partial Oakzanita Peak loop at the end, totaling about 3 hours.
The plant action is along the rivers and creeks, with good numbers of flowering Euthamia occidentalis | Western Goldenrod, Erythranthe cardinalis | Scarlet Monkeyflower and Oenothera elata hirsutissima | Hooker's Evening Primrose.
The goal today was to find Helenium puberulum, we had several good GPS locations, but we did not find any.
Let's hope for cooler weather.
Temperature: 54(8am)-86, sunny, almost no wind.
Bloom: Low, probably just over 20 blooming plants.
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