I stood among the
multi-colored stones of Death Valley, gazing at the greatest
wildflower bloom I’ve ever seen — the greatest bloom of a
generation. I had driven from my home in Oregon through the night
to see this spectacle, and now that I’d arrived, I found I was
unprepared for the power of its beauty. I was on the shore of a
golden lake of flowers, a lake that filled this deepest valley of
the continent.
Dozens of varieties of wildflowers
contributed to this bloom, but in Death Valley in mid-March, by far
the predominant species was desert gold, a knee-high sunflower
whose massed golden blossoms lit the sky. Its seeds had been
slumbering for decades — in some cases, perhaps for a century
— among the rocks, only to be awakened by the record six
inches of rain that had fallen on the desert this year.
The other species formed a garden of names almost as colorful as
their flowers: desert trumpet and snake-head and turtleback,
honey-sweet and pickleweed, pebble pincushion and gravel ghost. I
know many nature-lovers who feel that identifying flowers, birds,
and butterflies robs them of their mystery and prevents pure
appreciation. I’ve found the opposite to be true. The concentration
and clarity of vision required to identify a flower takes me deeper
into its beauty, strengthens my awe at its particular perfection.
On this trip, I was blessed to be with friends who shared
this perspective, and we happily crouched among the rocks to focus
on the details that make all the difference between a
broad-flowered gilia and a broad-leaved gilia. Each identification
made, we raised our eyes to the color-drenched landscape and were
swept away all over again.
Our awestruck appreciation was
not unique. We were sharing Death Valley with a mighty host, many
thousands strong. They had come from every corner of the United
States, and from Canada and Europe and Japan, to share in this
moment when everything aligned to create the perfect bloom. The
crowds, the intense but mellow energy, the high spirits, and the
sense that this was a once-in-a-lifetime happening, all contributed
to an atmosphere that can only be called the Woodstock of
Wildflowers … Bloomstock.
A few of the participants
would not have been out of place grooving to Jimi Hendrix and
Jefferson Airplane all those years ago. But most were inhabitants
of a very different reality. SUVs replaced VW buses as the vehicles
of choice, and immense RVs formed a fortress-like city that seemed
to loom over the sprawling, dusty parking lot that was the
“overflow campground,” home for our time at Bloomstock. Still, for
all the variety of values among the attendees, we had all come to
Death Valley for the same reason: We were all chasing beauty.
Beauty is like love. It afflicts us all, leaving us
happier and more sad, richer and poorer, more foolish and more
wise. It is indispensable to a good human life. In its absence, we
seek it, often not quite knowing what we seek or understanding the
lack that we feel. The search makes us one, the Republicans and the
Democrats, the old and the young, the drivers of Hummers and of
hybrids. I stood among the flowers with a NRA member from El Paso.
I found this to be profoundly hopeful.
Like Woodstock,
Bloomstock will be a fleeting moment, and too soon it will come to
an end. My friends and I all had jobs and responsibilities, and we
reluctantly tore ourselves away. It was a long drive home.
When, after many hours, we reached northernmost
California, a blizzard descended around our two cars, the only
vehicles on that long and lonely road. As we drove slowly through
the night, the numberless snowflakes surrounded us with an
ever-blooming chrysanthemum of snow as they flowed past the
windshield. It was a bloom almost as spectacular and certainly as
fleeting as the golden lake of flowers filling Death Valley. While
we were chasing beauty, it had captured us.
Pepper Trail is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News in Paonia, Colorado
(hcn.org). He lives and writes in Ashland,
Oregon.
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