Western Sojourns: Travels with Camissonia: Desert Lily Sanctuary, Chuckwalla Valley (Desert Center, E. Riverside County, CA): 3/15/2019

Sunday, April 7, 2019

Desert Lily Sanctuary, Chuckwalla Valley (Desert Center, E. Riverside County, CA): 3/15/2019

Riding on the wave of this year's superbloom, we decided to trek further out from our neck of the woods in Western Riverside County to the Desert Lily Sanctuary in the Chuckwalla Valley near Desert Center in Eastern Riverside County. What a perfect day it was! Partly cloudy skies, mild winds and mild temperatures. The drive was about 2 1/2 hours (150 miles) from our home base in Murrieta, taking us along the I-10 past the iconic windmills in Palm Springs, the Coachella Valley, Joshua Tree National Park, Chiriaco Summit and Desert Center. The Sanctuary itself is about 7 miles northeast of Desert Center off State Highway 177/Rice Road. This 2,000 acre preserve, founded by Tasker and Beula Edmiston, who first observed desert lilies there on Easter Sunday 1957, is now protected by the 1994 Desert Protection Act and under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Well, we saw nary a single desert lily on this trip. Kinda reminded me of the time many moons ago when we enthusiastically convinced some friends to drive out to the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve to see the typically splendiferous spring display of California poppies only to find upon our arrival just ONE solitary specimen near the parking area. So lame and sad, but at least we brought along some wine to quell the pain. Based on some earlier wildflower reports online, I'd say that we probably missed the peak of lily bloom here by about 2 weeks but there were still some abundant displays of Desert Sand Verbena (mostly roadside just outside the preserve), Parish's Gold Poppy, Miniature Poppy, Desert Star, Desert Sunflower, Desert Coreopsis, Brown-Eyed Evening Primrose, Gravel Ghost, and Notch-leaved Phacelia, along with a few cool newbies for my CA native plant life list (Devil's Spineflower and Lineleaf Whitepuff) that made this trip totally worth the while. Btw, the area is fairly remote so there are no crowds whatsoever, which is a good thing. In fact, we only came across two other people during our time there who drove up with their Golden Retriever in tow just as we were leaving the preserve.

The iconic windmills off of I-10 along the San Gorgonio Pass just before the city limits of
Palm Springs, with the yellow blooms of Desert Coreopsis carpeting the desert floor

I-10E between Cactus City rest area and Box Canyon Road

Hayfield exit off I-10

Julian Hinds Pumping Station on the Colorado River Aqueduct at Hayfield

Red Cloud Road, off the I-10, is a great side ORV trip to Red Cloud Mine,
especially in the spring when the weather is temperate and the wildflowers are blooming