Spring 2024
First, let’s establish what a “super bloom” of wildflowers is, or isn’t. It seems to imply that a wildflower bloom is particularly strong in a given year, but it’s not a precise or scientific term: “‘The term ‘superbloom’ is a media construct with no botanical or ecological origin,’ said Cameron Barrows, an associate research ecologist at UC Riverside’s Center for Conservation Biology.” That quote is from the article “Superbloom? If you say so“, which starts with “Superbloom is a term concocted by the media…” That discussion was in the context of the March 2019 wildflower season, which featured California poppies in a few areas of Southern California. Ironically, that year I found prolific wildflowers in El Portal near Yosemite in late April, then in several areas of the Central Nevada desert in late May and Early June, but it wasn’t a notable year for Death Valley. So it’s in the eye of the beholder, especially if you’re a media outlet needing to hype something that week, and given the sporadic and sparse, locally intense patterns of rainfall in the Southwest, especially in the desert, the healthy bloom conditions may not extend very far.
For Death Valley the last super bloom conditions are generally thought to have occurred in 2016. The triggering event was the flash floods that damaged Scotty’s Castle on October 18, 2015, plus a few additional rainfall events to nurture germinated plants in the coming months. Lori and I had studied the timing of wildflowers in various Death Valley locations and elevations while I wrote my guide book “Photographing California Vol. 2 – South” from 2010-2015, so we visited Death Valley a lot in spring 2016 to see it all play out in a strong year. As expected, the peak conditions started in late February in some places, early March in others, and the most intense blooming moved up in elevation as oncoming heat arrived from mid-March through April and May. Along Badwater Road, most wildflowers were south of Badwater, since that’s where the rains fell. But there was a nice bloom above the lowest parts of the valley along the Beatty Cutoff road below Daylight Pass, and in the Furnace Wash to Hole in the Rock area as well. The northern end of the park did not get a notable bloom (the last time we saw one there was in 2014), though there was some blooming in April in higher elevations such as alongside Racetrack Road in the Joshua Tree forest as it crosses a pass. The west side of the park wasn’t carpeted with widespread flowers, but again higher elevations such as around 3000-400 foot elevations on the east side of Towne Pass, did have a nice bloom in early April.
The same pattern of late summer through fall rains triggering germination, then following rains possibly watering growing plants can be seen in other years. So every year we look for a possible triggering event, we watch where plants are growing in December and January, and we monitor where subsequent the paths of subsequent rains to see where the best blooming may occur (see my blog: Death Valley Wildflowers, Rainfall and Super Blooms).
When another heavy rain event flooded Badwater in August 20, 2023, we again suspected that there could be a good setup for spring 2024.
Sure enough, we did really well finding wildflowers in that 2023-2024 season! Here are some examples below:
If anyone did better guiding photographers to Death Valley wildflowers in 2024, I haven’t seen their shots. If the Los Angeles Times didn’t send hordes of people to trample areas of decent blooming by declaring a “super bloom”, it’s probably good that they missed 2024!
There’s the reason I’m considering this now. We just had major rainfall in Death Valley last month (September 18, 2025)! It’s way too early to predict a “super bloom”. But rains now increase the odds that 2026 will offer a normal to above normal spring season in the following sense: there could be excellent blooming where the original rains fell, especially where follow-up watering occurs in the coming months. So we’re hopeful, and we’ll be watching. Hordes of people can trample paths in to the wildflowers, and people all over is not great for landscape photography, so whatever you do, don’t tell the L.A. Times!
Below is one of our regular clients, David Wells, in a large patch of desert gold (wild sunflowers) on our way to dinner. He wrote an extensive blog on our spring “adventure” trip that visits more remote locations in the Park. That is a camping trip, to enable us to be able to shoot sunrises, sunsets and night photography in every remote location we visit. When I contacted him to get permission to use his photo in this article, and he pointed out that he’s been with us four times in Death Valley alone, including our 2023 “Winter Light” trip that also captured the Geminids over the extensive water in Badwater, from the rain that set us up for a great spring bloom (here’s his blog from that trip, and you can already see one of the larger patches of desert gold starting to bloom, in December). I think that he’s been with us more times to Yosemite, and he started with us on an Eastern Sierra trip that featured night photography in the historic “ghost town” of Bodie, California. Many of our workshops are worth taking multiple times because the conditions are never the same twice, but we’re also adding more destinations so our regular clients can go to new places with us as well!
Back to the interesting ground moisture setup we’ve just received… we’ve scheduled two 2026 Death Valley spring photography workshops to coincide with both low elevation and higher elevation (backcountry) blooming. One is lodging-based early in March, the other is the “adventure” camping trip later in March that can visit places like The Racetrack and multiple remote sand dune complexes, where peak bloom is slightly later. For the adventure trip on many unpaved roads, you can bring your own vehicle (All Terrain tires advised) or rent a Jeep. While we can’t promise a prolific bloom yet, there’s never a bad time to visit the exotic landscape of Death Valley from December through March! The rest of the time, well there’s a reason they call it “Death Valley”!
Update November 14, 2025:
Death Valley National Park is making progress repairing road from the September 18 rains. Several days of rain showers are coming in the next week. This is great news for watering plants that germinated in September, and we’re still in the warm period when the new rains can cause more plants to germinate.
I don’t recall a setup quite this favorable in the last 15 years!
Update January 12, 2026:
Death Valley National Park has re-closed many roads after December and January 3 rains. The periodic watering of germinated plants continues!
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I saw the desert in bloom when working in. Last Vegas in 2004 or 05. I saw the Desert in bloom and it was amazing and the smells. I want my wife now to see just how beautiful the desert can be and smell. That's what I remember most was the smells. I have some health issues and have this on a bucket list. Please keep me posted. Frim what ive been reading
I stumbled upon this blog post this morning after seeing that there was more than a 10th of an inch of rain at furnace Creek yesterday (December 24) and more rain likely coming this week. I have been through Death Valley during an impressive bloom — I have no clue if it was actually a "superbloom" — and would like to see that again. I'm a snowbird coming south from Washington state into Arizona, New Mexico (this year), and California. I often take a route through Death Valley on my way home. This year, that will be in late February so I have my fingers crossed.
Some years ago — maybe 2019? — I experienced what had to be a super bloom in Borrego Springs. That was in March. There's nothing quite like being in the desert when so many flowers are in bloom.