Spring Flowers

                                  

    Great to be back to the coast after five long months in the desert.

      I (Nolan) am enjoying exploring more national forest roads.

Lots of flowering plants.

                         

                                   

                                    

        This is a Pieres Mountain Fire.  They are beautiful.  Would love to cut out some of  our uglier bushes and plant a couple of these.  

These are the little flowering bells all over the Pieres Mountain Fire.

              Purple Rhodendrom or Rhody for short.

              Red or Pink Rhody. What do you think?

                                   Lithodore.

    Called, Red Hot Poker.  I know not the best photo.

 

                               Orange Rhondy.

It is nice to get to the coast earlier then normal this year.   

Death Valley National Park

On our way north to Oregon, we swung through a portion of Death Valley National Park.  Our first stop was Dante's View.

Dante's View, at 5,475 ft (1,669 m), the most breathtaking viewpoint in the park.

First we drove over 10 miles off the main road to get to the top.  The end of the road had a 15% grade and some tight turns.

Looking to the south from the parking lot.

The view as we started turning to the right.  It was 4:30 pm in the middle of April so we are looking into the sun. 

Straight off the NPS website: Facing west, the view of the Panamint Mountains towering over the lowest point (-282ft / 86m) in North America (Badwater Basin) offers one of the best sunrises in the park. The barely visible mountains on the far western horizon are the Sierra Nevadas, home to the highest point (14,505ft / 4,421m) in the contiguous United States - Mount Whitney, however the peak itself isn't quite visible.

It was windy and only 61° at Dante's View.  When we got back to the main road, it was 76°.

Our only other stop on this trip was at Zabriskie Point, the most famous viewpoint in the park.  It overlooks the golden colored badlands of the Furnace Creek formation. It is most popular at sunrise and sunset.

There are trails that can be hiked from this stop.  It was 83° at the Zabriskie Point parking lot.

It is a short walk on a paved trail from the parking lot to the viewpoint.  Right away we could see that the rocks had pretty coloring.  These photos just don't do them justice. 

You could see the trail winding over the hills.

Looking off to the south, we saw some of the other hills had distinctive bands.

Looking back at the parking lot.