Date: April 9, 2023
Place: Red Rock Canyon State Park
Coordinates: 35.365137, -117.983012
Length: 1.8 miles
Level: easy
Spring time is usually when I get more busy hiking and more slack on documenting my hikes. This 2023 spring is particularly special because following a wonderfully wet winter, much of California is experiencing super bloom. California is big and my time is limited. I wish I could have visited all the hotspots but I can only see some of them. This spring the chikas had their spring breaks at different times. Pappa Quail and the elder chika traveled to Texas to bird along the gulf, and I took the young chika for a week of skiing at Mammoth Lakes. I made a deal with her though: that we'd take the longer route to reach Mammoth Lakes and on the way we'd check out some of the superbloom hot spots. So we spent three days on a wonderful wildflower chase, and while on those days we visited the Pinnacles National Park and Carrizo Plain National Monument, the icing on the cake was the Southeastern Sierra Nevada, where the desert just went nuts with bloom. The best spot was at Red Rock Canyon State Park, and that was so exciting so I write about it first.
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Near the trailhead
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Red Rock Canyon is a lovely geological spot on hwy 14. There's a campground there, and much ground for OHV play. Most of the time the park's attraction is just the lovely geology. This spring, however, the geology took the back seat. It was flowers time! After a short chat at the visitor center, my chika and I got to the Hagen Canyon trailhead and started the nice little loop hike there.
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Our hike as captured by my GPS
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Right from the start I knew that this would be a very slow hike. There were flowers literally everywhere! Many of the desert plants are small and close to the ground, but the area they were covering was immense.
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| Lepidium flavum, Yellow Peppercress |
We were not alone there, naturally. Red Rock Canyon is a very accessible park and I expected not to be alone there, especially at this high bloom time. Indeed, it was hard to take view photos that were clean of other humans.
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| Trail |
The reason the hike was so slow was, of course, that I stopped by each and every flower I saw blooming there. All of them looked so lovely, and at their peak bloom. I couldn't stop snapping my camera, even at flowers that didn't look too special.
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Cryptantha sp.
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Even flowers I was quite familiar with received their due attention from me. The brown-eyed primrose is a wildflower I always see on my spring trips to the California deserts. Most recently I've seen it
in Anza Borrego State Park on my January trip. Here at Red Rock Canyon the brown-eyed primrose plants were large and very lush, compared with the plants I saw in Anza Borrego, and in other deserts on previous years.
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Chylismia claviformis, Brown-eyed Primrose
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Only a few steps into the hike another visitor pointed out to me a small patch of monkeyflowers. I love monkeyflowers, and this was a species I've never seen before. The plants were small but the flowers were pretty large for monkeyflowers, and very festive-looking. Later I found out that this particular species is very rare and endangered - it is endemic to the Red Rock Canyon area, meaning it grows only there. It's in it's name - the Red Rock Canyon Monkeyflower.
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| Erhythranthe rhodopetra, Red Rock Canyon Monkeyflower |
I usually don't bother with popcorn flowers - the Cryptantha genus. There are many species of them that I find hard to tell apart, and they are generally very common, and also hard to photograph because the flowers are small and lack contrast. The Mojave Cryptantha however, did attract me. It's flowers do indeed look like popcorn with that little yellow spot in the middle. They are relatively large and had cloud-like appearance, and looked much more impressive than other Cryptantha species I've seen.
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| Cryptantha mohavensis, Mojave Cryptantha |
The Hagen Canyon trail took us a into a low valley between low hills and rock formations. it was afternoon and the shadows were extending. The day was hot still (it in the eighties earlier), but the edge of the heat was already off.
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| Trail |
A dense sweet smell hung in the air. I quickly identified its source - bushes of desert Alysum in full bloom that emitted their thick honey fragrance into the air. I inhaled deeply the sweetness of the air. I didn't see any bees there, though. Who was the Alysum advertising for?
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| Lepidium fremontii, Desert Alysum |
The dominant color besides that of the rocks was yellow. Big mats of goldfield and yellow peppercress covered every space between the rocks and the larger shrubs and bushes. It looked like little creeks and ponds of living gold.
Here and there I noticed other small, yellow-flowering plants, like this tiny blazingstar. It's funny how many shades of yellow are there, all existing within the same small area, for a short, fleeting time.
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Yellow Blazing Star, Mentzelia affinis, and Goldfields
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While yellow was the dominant color, every other color was well represented too. In some cases I wasn't sure about the identity of the flowers, I'm still in the process of finding out.
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Gilia sp.
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The yellow carpets were even more impressive at a closer view. Nicely contrasting with their grayish-green of the desert shrubs and the pale sand , the yellow mats added an intense liveliness to the desert scenery. I've seen this place enough times sans the bloom, and the difference was absolutely striking.
Good thing that I looked carefully at the ground because the overwhelming yellow ground cover was sometimes hiding other gems.
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| Fremont's Phacelia, Phacelia fremontii |
Occasionally I paid some attention to the geological features as well. The park is named after the red layers of rock interlaced with paler rock layers. The erosion-created formations were quite a sight as well.
The rocks however, were not going anywhere. They would still be there next time I would drive through the park, even when all the bloom would be gone. This time I focused on the very transient desert super bloom.
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| Trail |
Behind the yellow carpets another kind of floral maps shined at me in pale neon color. These bright mats comprised of large and gorgeous scalebud blossoms. They were even more impressive than the yellow carpets.
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| Anisocoma acaulis, Scalebud |
If the low, yellow patches hid low, purple surprises, the high neon patches hid larger blue treasures, like this Mojave Lupine.
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| Lupinus odoratus, Mojave Royal Lupine, and Anisocoma acaulis, Scalebud |
My chika was thrilled not having to share my attention with her older sister. She pranced along the trail, finding interesting things and pointing them out for me to photograph. She also pointed at a crumbly-looking hill across the valley of bloom but what stopped my in my tracks was the sight of the slopes of the larger mountain, further beyond the hill. The mountain itself was green with vegetation, a very unusual sight in this area. But the lower slopes were painted with magnificent bloom. Quite a remarkable sight it was!
A bit further into the hike we caught sight of one of the prominent rock formations along that trail. I spotted a short spur trail in that direction and tugged my chika's arm to go and check it out from up close.
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Formation
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Of course there were plenty of wildflowers along the short way to the rock formation too. Even Phacelia distans, perhaps the most common species of Phacelia in California, looked prettier here than in any other place that I've seen it blooming. Perhaps it knew it was part of the greatest celebration of spring.
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| Common Phacelia, Phacelia distans |
At a closer distance the rock formation looked big and impressive. It was also easier to see how the different rock layers that made the formation were extended from the same layers that were part of the mountain behind. On the top right is the protrusion that looked like a perched eagle. Below on the left - a nice rock arch. The marks of countless of people that climbed the formation were obvious . It is legal there, though, and my chika indulged in some climbing there as well.
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Formation
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To be honest, I was more fascinated by the rock layers behind "The Rooster", and the erosion patters that made the beautiful formations. The red layer reminded me of photos from Easter Island of hats made of red volcanic rock that were placed on the ancient rock figures.
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Red Rock Formations
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Even at the bottom of the well trampled rock formation were wildflowers in bloom. Most I've already seen on the short trail leading to the formation, but there was something new there too.
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| Chaenactis fremontii, Fremont's Pincushion |
I didn't climb the rock but I approached to check it out. The view from the arch was gorgeous and I spent some time there trying to get the best angle for a photograph, going back and forth between showing more of the arch or more of the view seen through it, which was that of the valley below and the colorful mountains across hwy 14.
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Arch View
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It was the chika who pointed out to me the closer mountains on left. They were lower, and made of much paler rock. Most of that mountain looked bare of vegetation, which made the few patches of intense bloom even more striking.
We returned to the main trail and resumed our walk with the chika pointing out little treasures for me, like this lovely linanthus in the photo below.
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Golden Linanthus, Leptosiphon aureus
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The bigger beauties I had no problems spotting by myself without my chika's help. I remembered seeing the bladderpod blooming in Anza Borrego State Park three months earlier. Now I caught up with it here in spring.
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Bladderpod Bush, Peritoma arborea
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For a short distance the trail overlapped the dry creek bed. The creek bottom itself didn't have any plants growing but there were little, shiny beetles darted away from our footsteps. They were very fast but I managed to catch one on camera. The first wildlife we saw on this hike.
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| Beetle |
Ahead of us loomed a rock mass that looked not as advanced in erosion sculpting as the rocks we've passed earlier on the hike. The interchanging red and white rock layers showed how the erosion takes place - the red layers are of harder rock and the thicker, white layers are softer, and erode quicker, forming streaked columns.
As we approached that hill I zoomed closer on the rocks behind it on the left where the same rock layers were already eroded into mushroom formations. Had we had more time I would have walked over there to check these formations from a closer distance.
It was getting late however, and that massive hill was also the turning point of the trail, so we followed the curve to the east where new fields of wildflowers appeared before our eyes.
My eyes were trained on the flowers so once again it was my chika who spotted the wildflife - a colorful lizard below a bush. The lizard waited patiently untill I got enough photos, then run off on its way.
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Mojave Zebra-tailed Lizard
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The next lizard that my chika spotted wasn't as cooperative, and took off running as soon as I raised my camera. I was lucky when it decided to pause and do a few warning pushups before vanishing behind another bush.
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| Lizard |
Before long our route back became a celebration of colors. Unlike the mostly yellow and neon that we saw along the dry wash, the trail rounding back went through a magnificent quilt of floral patches of many species blooming in many different colors.
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Goldfield (yellow), Red Rock Canyon Monkeyflower (pink), and Scalebud (neon)
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The rock formations in the background framed the floral quilt in the most perfect way. It was truly the desert at its best.
It didn't matter how many photos I already took of the Red Rock Canyon Monkeyflower, I couldn't stop taking more of them, as individuals and in patches. At that time I didn't even know how rare these gorgeous flowers actually are.
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| Erhythranthe rhodopetra, Red Rock Canyon Monkeyflower |
The neon-colored scalebud also deserved a closer look. Being of the aster family, each petal represents an individual flower, making what looks like a flower an actual inflorescence, made of many, many flowers.
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| Anisocoma acaulis, Scalebud |
We approached another rock formations hill with formations that looked very much like the hoodoos I saw at Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah and at the
Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona. I assume that the erosion mechanism is similar.
Here also I regretted not having enough time to do more in depth exploration of the hoodoo formations. It looked like it would have been much fun.
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| Hoodoos |
Especially I would have liked to check out the cavities hidden behind some of the separated hoodoos. As it was, I had to settle for what my imagination told my was a cave.
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| Hoodoos |
I settled for a closer look at a lonely rock mushroom that sprouted separately from the larger rock mass of the formations.
Rock formations are beautiful, but my attention quickly returned to the real celebrities of this hike - the wildflowers.
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| Goldfield, Lasthenia sp. and Gilia sp. |
My young chika soon found yet another flower that I haven't seen yet on this hike. It is called purplemat, but I saw only a few individual plants, by no means a mat.
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Purplemat, Nama demissa
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The trail curved again, to the north. We were following the line of another dry wash, this time from above. I couldn't have enough of how full of life this place could be, given a good winter.
The next little gem I found on my own, without the chika's help. Parry's linanthus is small and delicate, and there weren't very many of them. Defenitely not a continuous patch. Most of them had this light purple color, but I saw also a few white individuals.
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| Linanthus parryae, Parry's Linanthus |
It's a good thing not to rely on flower color when identifying the plant because many species show variation in flower colors. Parry's linanthus is a good example of such.
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| Linanthus parryae, Parry's Linanthus |
Still, the most dominant color was the yellow. On this side of the trail, it was the goldfields which presented their gold on display.
There were also more Joshua Trees along this part of the hike. When I got close enough I though I saw that they were blooming too. I went closer to check it out, and sure enough, they were blooming.
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Joshua Tree, Yucca brevifolia
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Well, sort of. They were already past the peak bloom, in their post-fertilization fruiting stage. Still very beautiful to see.
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| Joshua Tree, Yucca brevifolia |
Below the Joshua Trees I found yet another gem of a flower - the woolly daisy. I only saw them once before, in Joshua Tree National Park when I went there with my botanist friend to look for the desert bloom.
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| Eriophyllum wallacei, Wallace's Woolly Daisy |
Despite the slow pace we were quickly approaching the end of the hike. We completed the southern loop and took the eastern arm of a second, smaller loop. This time we were going up the low hill between the dry washes.
Hardly a couple of steps into the second loop I spotted the owl's clover. I saw one of them, very nice and plump, and I gave it a good, loong attention time. Isn't it gorgeous?
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| Mojave Owl's Clover, Castilleja exerta ssp. venusta |
Two steps further I saw an entire patch of them, each more beautiful than the next. Here too I had difficulty moving on, and even more difficulty chosing which photo too post here.
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| Mojave Owl's Clover, Castilleja exerta ssp. venusta |
While the beauty of the neon-shining scale bud flowers is most noticeable when seen in carpets, the individual plants are quite lovely on their own as well.
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| Anisocoma acaulis, Scalebud |
Looking closely between the mat-forming scalebuds I spotted other, less noticeable wildflowers that are just as lovely.
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Mojave Suncup, Camissonia campestris
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The young chika pointedat an interesting looking plant. This was chia, which is very common in man parts of California, and I loved seeing how nice and lush they looked this year in the desert.
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Chia, Salvia columbariae
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It was getting late and my chika started inquiring about dinner. We still had nearly an hour drive to Rodgecrest, where we would eat and stay for the night. I wasn't in a hurry to leave though. There was so much neon around to illuminate the desert landscape.
Even les spectacular blossoms grabbed my attention. I like salt bushes. I like chewing on their saly leaves. I didn't choew on this one though. It was nice to see it in bloom.
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Parry's Saltbush, Atriplex parryi,
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Every now and then I lifted my eyes from the ground and took in the lovely scenery of th blooming desert with all of its sharp contrasts. I felt I should have given it much more time that I alocated for it on this trip.
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| Trail |
At the top of the low hill we found another stand of Joshua Trees. This signature plant of the Mojave desert was the perfect jewel of this hike's scenery.
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Joshua Tree, Yucca brevifolia
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We completed the second loop and were back at the parking lot, but I wasn't ready to leave the park just yet so I suggested my chika to go take a closer look at the large rock formations behind us. She made a face but didn't argue.
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Red Rock Canyon formations
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A movement below me grabbed my attention. It was a wasp and the wasp was going in and out of a small burrow. Wasps of this kinddig burrows and stuff them with pray that they hunted and paralized. They lay their eggs on the paralized pray, ensuring nutrition for their offspring when they hatch. I overlayed a photo of the wasp half way inside the hole on top of the photo of the wasp entirely outside it.
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| Wasp |
We reached the rock formation and looked at it with admiration. This particular foprmation is probably the most famous of this park, featured on the brochures and other publications. It was late enough in the day to have managed a photo without any other humans in it.
The next formation over was no less impressive, although its overall shape wasn't as iconic. Still, on a closer look we could see very interesting features in it.
I, for example, saw a balcony with stone figures sianding there, looking at the park visitors and sharing gossip about us.
The young chika identified rock peaple sharing a tendder, intimate moment, frozen in time until the next big erosion event.
And still there were more wildflower to see, right there at the bottom of the rock formations.
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| Malacothrix califronica, Desert Dandelion |
Some of these flowers were actually easier to see and photograph in the late afternoon light, when shaded by the mountain.
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| Gilia latiflora, Broad Flowered Gilia |
The afternoon light made some of the sights mor eerie, like this dead bush that looked like a white ghost.
My chika was getting restless. It was time to go. On our way back tothe parking lot we were walking next to two other park visitors. They spotted a pretty looking rock that was green, and probably carried there bythe wash when it flowed.
I first visited this park nearly 15 years ago with Pappa Quail and the two chikas that were very young at the time - a prescholler and a toddler they were. We camped there and on the day we planned to hike the chikas, who were much impressed by a cartoon they watched about the paleolythic era, sat down at the trailhead and started banging rocks together, mimicking stone tool making. We couldn't convince them to move and by the time they finished their game they were two exhausted to hike so we never did this hike. Now my young chika and I finally got to do this hike, and what a hike that was! I told my chika that her (and her sister's) debt to me was paid back at last. I probably would go back there before too long, but there is no telling when again will there be a spring superbloom like that. One can only hope.
Many thanks to members of the California Native Plants Society for their help in identifying plants!
