The Bloom- Antelope Valley California Poppy Revserve

Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve is one of the amazing things I have seen. The state flower of California- Poppy blooms on the sloppy grasslands in Mohave Desert. In good weather conditions the rolling hills are draped with fields of wild orange poppy blooms.

Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve is located in almost desert landscape and still these wild poppies bloom in unbelievable numbers!  They are wild, no-one planted them and no-one waters them! It is one special experience to walk in the endless fields of wildflowers.

Poppy carpet!

Located 15 miles from Lancaster-CA the preserve is nestled in Antelope Buttes. The whole landscape looks orange. Patches of goldfields and lupines add a bit of color-contrast. Few other wildflowers seen were owl's clover, cream cups, silver puffs, forget-me-nots, lacy phacelia, pale primrose, checker fiddleneck and red-stemmed filaree. There were yellow poppies too, but very few in number.

The preserve has total 8-miles of hiking trails with negligible elevation gain. The area is very exposed and dry, and so you have to take caution about the sun and heat. Avoid visiting in the afternoons. The preserve has an entry fee of $10 per car. During peak season the parking may get full early in the morning itself. Also, winds in the area are very harsh most of the times and they sometimes carry too much of dust. The wind also affects the photography, getting one clear and sharp picture of a poppy is an achievement in itself! 

One of the very few Yellow Poppies seen in the valley

As we all know how unpredictable nature is, few years the show is spectacular and some years not so much. I visited this place several times on the way to other destinations. But, the spectacular show I have seen was in the year 2008 and couple of pictures I have posted here are from that trip. Nature has millions of small wonders, I consider Antelope Valley is one of them.

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This post is linked to Our World Tuesday and Nature Notes.

If you want pictures please ask me :)
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Scrapbook- A Travel Blog by Kusum Sanu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.