Wildflowers are blooming in the driest place in North America — but not
for long
[March 11, 2026]
By JESSICA HILL
DEATH VALLEY, Calif. (AP) — Death Valley, known as the driest place in
North America, is teeming with life with a once-in-a-decade blossoming
of wildflowers known as a superbloom, transforming a normally brown
desert landscape into carpets of gold.
Wildflowers bloom across parts of southern California and Nevada at
different degrees usually every year. In some years, superblooms are so
vibrant they can be seen from space. But it's rare for Death Valley
National Park, the hottest place on Earth, to burst with color.
“This landscape that sometimes people think of as desolate or devoid of
life is coming alive right now with this really beautiful palette of
colors,” said park ranger Matthew Lamar.
This year’s bloom is the best the park has seen since 2016 thanks to
steady rainfall and warm temperatures in the last six months, Lamar
said.
Death Valley received nearly a year’s worth of rain since October and
experienced the wettest November on record, according to the National
Park Service, with 1.76 inches (4.47 centimeters) of rain, allowing
long-dormant seeds buried in the soil to burst through the surface.
Thriving in adversity
Known as the “desert sunflower,” the desert gold flower blankets areas
of the valley, with purple phacelia, brown-eyed primrose and the pink
desert five-spot sprinkled throughout.
Just north of the Furnace Creek Visitor Center, Las Vegas resident
Jackie Gilbert appreciated the contrast between the field of gold
flowers with the mountains behind it and the blue sky above. She said
the flowers' resilience is amazing.
“It’s a good reminder that even in the face of all this adversity, that
they can still thrive,” said Gilbert, who visited specifically to see
the superbloom.
Ecologists say the superbloom disproves a misconception about deserts:
that there’s no life. Even in years without vibrant blooms, a lot of
life happens in Death Valley, said Loralee Larios, plant ecologist at
the University of California, Riverside.
“The plants and the animals have developed really amazing strategies to
be able to persist, and especially in a system like Death Valley that’s
really sort of characterized by extremes,” Larios said.
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A person stands in a field of wildflowers during a superbloom
Saturday, March 7, 2026, in Death Valley National Park, Calif. (AP
Photo/John Locher)
 Tiffany Pereira, ecologist and
associate research scientist at the Desert Research Institute, said
desert plants have adapted to go decades without water, waiting for
the perfect conditions for its seeds to germinate and spring to
life.
Short-lived opportunity
Time is of the essence to see these ephemeral, or short-lived,
wildflowers.
The fields of flowers on the park's lower elevations are expected to
remain until mid-to-late March, depending on the weather. Higher
elevations will blossom with color April through June, according to
the National Park Service.
Visitors can check a poster outside of the visitor center for the
best spots to view the flowers. In early March, fields of
wildflowers are blooming just north of the visitor center, as well
as south along Badwater Road. Ashford Mill, an hour’s drive from the
visitor center, is also bursting with color, according to Lamar.
Ecologists and the park rangers caution visitors to stick to
designated trails and avoid trampling on the flowers. Picking the
flowers is prohibited, and touching the purple phacelia could cause
skin irritation. Any flower plucked from the ground means fewer
seeds planted for future generations to enjoy, Pereira said.
Visitors should also watch their step for the sphinx moth
caterpillars, which are scattered across the desert floor in search
of the brown-eyed primrose to eat before it buries itself into the
soil and transforms into a moth.
“I think it’s a great time to come to Death Valley and have that
unique experience because who knows when the next one will happen?”
Lamar said.
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