When the TV cameras start showing up to provide morning feeds to news shows, you know it must be a great year for wildflowers in Anza-Borrego, and very near peak.  It is both!

The fields along Henderson Canyon Road, and Coyote Canyon beginning at the north end of Digiorgio Road have to be two of the best areas.  Both these locations are in Borrego Springs and contain endless fields of wonderful colors.  It is an amazing site to see, and unlike anything you would normally see in the desert.  The photo below is from Coyote Canyon this a.m.

If I lived anywhere near this wonderful event, I would get on my horse, drive my car, or even ride the neighbor’s broken bike – whatever it took to get down here to experience this fairly rare show before it is too late.  It has been three years since it last looked like this, who knows when it may happen again.

Now for the bad news.  The weekends are very crowed in this little town, so bring your patience.  The other bummer – it looks like a big storm might be hitting this Saturday or Sunday.  During the week is the best time to visit, but it is still worth fighting the crowds and weather if you can only come on the weekends.

Southwestern Barrel Cactus.

Kinda lost in this small size is a wonderful ring of flowers on the top of this cactus.  Captured with a Canon tilt / shift lens.

Desert Sunflowers or Desert Gold, along Henderson Canyon Road, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.  This is looking up toward Coyote Canyon at sunset.

In 2005, when I heard about the amazing desert bloom, I quickly caught a flight from Alaska and lived out of a rental car for 6 weeks as I traveled around the and photographed the Desert Southwest.  The one place I was sorry to have missed seeing were the fields of Desert Sunflowers on Henderson Canyon Road – By the time I got down here in February, a rainstorm had pretty much wiped them out.

So when we arrived in Borrego 3 weeks ago, this was the first place I went.  But 3 weeks ago, there wasn’t a single flower in this field, it was all green.  It really has undergone an amazing transformation in the past couple of weeks, mostly in just the past week.

The best news; most of the plants have one, maybe two blooms, and about five buds ready to bloom, so I think it is going to get even better in the days to come!

It is interesting how the timing of the bloom varies from year to year.  In 2005, this area was wonderful during the first couple of weeks of February, this year it will be an entire month later.