March 2, 2026. This is the more timely of my weekend activites, so I'll post it, now.
Mostly driving, with, at most, a few hundred yards of walking around the area west of Haugen-Lehmann Way (north of I-10), then a few hundred yards around the windmills of North Palm Springs (south of I-10, west of Indian Canyon Drive), then probably a few miles total of walking around in several areas of the southernmost four miles or so of Cottonwood Springs Road, both within Joshua Tree National Park, and in the BLM-administered areas south of the park.
I noticed brittlebush starting to bloom two weeks ago, and thought I'd see how the bloom has progressed. I'm not sure, but we may be at peak, which is good, but not great in terms of flower density. The top two brittlebush blooms were near Haugen-Lehmann Way, which I previously visited just under three years ago, during a superbloom.
Substantially less density on this trip, but it's over a month earlier on the calendar than the "superbloom" shots. Still, the rainfall and warmth was earlier this year than that year, so I would have figured the bloom would be accelerated, and I'm not expecting it will be as good, this year. Still, I may be in the area again in two weeks, so I may be making one more in-bloom trip up here. That'll tell me if we are past peak, or not.
My second stop was under the windmills of North Palm Springs.
I could see good coverage of desert dandelion from the freeway, and intended to get off at Indian Canyon Road, anyway. There's a Pilot truckstop there, which usually means decent gasoline prices, clean restrooms with running water, and easy availability of drinks and snacks. (I have noticed that the Costco in Palm Desert usually has significantly cheaper gas, but less convenient restrooms!). Stopped at a few spots along the road that parallels I-10, heading west from Indian Canyon Road.
My third series of stops was along Cottonwood Springs Road, from north of I-10 on up to the visitor center at Cottonwood Oasis Drive. I first stopped at the Bajada nature trail, but was somewhat disappointed by what I saw there (flower-wise). So I continued on to the visitor center.
The available personnel there seemed to have a surprising lack of interest in engaging me, so I just went with my suspicion that the best flowers were going to be heading back south, so that's what I did. Stopped at a dirt road, just south of the visitor center (Pinkham Canyon Road, I assume), then again at several pullouts along the way back, and past, the Bajada nature trail, including areas south of the park boundary. I did the most walking down at that last stop, although desert mallow shot was in the wash near Pinkham Canyon.
I'm pretty sure the rest of the shots I posted here were on the southernmost section I walked. Brittlebush was still the dominent flower, but there were nice patches of desert poppy and various lupine species, and additional desert dandelion. The phacelia shot may also have been from the wash, though.
These are Fremont pincushion, then phacelia, below. Not sure about the low white flowers, above. They look like a small daisy.
So plenty of specimen shots, and pretty good coverage of brittlebush, but not super-dense.
There were lots of high, thin clouds, so it was very comfortable, and definitely cooler than back in the L.A. Basin. As usual, just wandering in the open space was relaxing and enjoyable.
When off-trail, I tried to stick to the wash areas as much as possible, to limit my impact on the wildflowers. Some of the flowers are tiny and thin, so you really need to be careful not to step on anything. But the sandy wash bottoms are less dense. Otherwise, stepping on rocks would also be a good idea. And, if I'm near a developed trail, I'm much less likely to do any wandering, at all, because there's already going to be so much off-trail impacts that I don't want to add to that.
So, bottom line, not a "super" bloom in this area, but lots of blooming plants, and still cool enough to wander, comfortably.
Did not use Alltrails to measure my walks, since I knew most would be short, without significant altitude gain. But I'm pretty sure I got over three miles walking, total (possibly closer to five miles), so I'd count it as a hike, even if only in the aggregate. That makes it my twelfth hike of the year. I still need to blog my eleventh hike, which I took on March 1, 2026.
