Bloom boom expected in deserts

RED ROCK CANYON, Nev. — The vistas in this land of desert and rock feature deep canyons and striated rock formations. But the most impressive sight is yet to come.

Thanks to storms that swept the Southwest region including Nevada, Utah and California in January and February, at some point next month the gray floor of the desert will be set ablaze by carpets of wildflowers, in riotous shades of purple, yellow and red.

"I'm hoping it's going to be terrific," says Patrick Leary, a professor of plant biology at the College of Southern Nevada, who teaches a course in desert plants. "You suffer and wait and pray for a good year, and when that year comes, you have to be out there every available moment. And then it's gone."

The increase in Web sites devoted to desert wildflower viewing is making it easier to find remote spots like one in Utah on state Route 24, the road that approaches Capitol Reef National Park from the east. In 2005, the desert there was paved with yellow beeplant and purple scorpionweed.

Tom Clark, the chief of resource management at Capitol Reef, says heavy rain this year should produce an even better wildflower season than 2005. The prime area to see flowers like sego lilies and larkspur this year will shift from Route 24 to the park itself, in the Strike Valley, and the canyons of the Waterpocket Fold for paintbrush and daisies.

He predicts the peak viewing period will be early May and the bloom will stretch into June. (The nearest cluster of motels are in the town of Green River, about an hour's drive, and in Torrey, on the west side of Capitol Reef.)

David Senesac, an engineer who lives in Silicon Valley, has his own site displaying photos from his viewing trips. He put 8,000 miles on his car in just over two months to see the stellar California blooms of 2005.

This year, he's planning to witness the wildflowers in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, about 70 miles northeast of Los Angeles. More than 9 inches of rain have fallen so far this season, more than the area usually gets in an entire year. "That large amount of rain is likely to repeat an event I last saw in 1991, which they called 'the Miracle March,"' he says. "It was one of the greatest blooms ever in Southern California."

Senesac calls the Mojave Desert, which extends from Southern California into Nevada, southwest Utah and northwest Arizona, one of the most impressive flower zones in the world, "where species from nearby areas like the Sierra Nevada mountains have somehow found a niche in the desert environment."

Carol Leigh, an Oregon writer who also conducts photography workshops, is another wildflower enthusiast who shares her interest by sponsoring a Web site, the California Wildflower Hotsheet.