I opened a blank page of my journal to sketch the most memorable views of my hike. I put the black ink pen to the page and began scrawling in the recycled Moleskine notebook I taped back together in order to give it new life. All that came to mind were the rows of brilliant flowers that grew amongst the grasses that lined the 11-mile hiking trail to Slide Mountain Lookout in the northwest section of Angeles National Forest, off I-5. The green grass bled with golden hues from California Poppies, bright yellows from Deer Plant and Goldfields, and deep blues from lupines and Blue Fiesta flowers.
I chose to focus on our state flower, the California Poppy, and tried to mimic its slightly draping, delicate petals, which mirrored orange silk, and colored the lines in to the best of my ability. It was an assignment given to me for my California Naturalist Course, administered by The Santa Monica Mountains Fund. We were to capture a bit of nature for an hour each week and document it in our nature journals. At first, I found the task inconvenient. I was outside to hike and take photos, not sit and take in my surroundings while drawing. However, I have since grown to enjoy it, and I plan on continuing the journal for myself as I hike and travel.
I did notice a very obvious pattern, partly because I enjoy drawing cartoonish flowers for fun, and partly because I love photographing a particular type of plant when I’m outside. This winter brought floods and storms to California, with heavy rainfall soaking the ground. Wildflower blooms began in the low deserts in February, then moved north and upslope through spring. I witnessed it all myself and found that the images consumed the pages in my nature journal.
I first noticed the wildflowers poking up from the sands in Joshua Tree National Park while I was hiking and camping out there, and heard about the flowers sprouting in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. As I moved northward, I saw an abundance of flowers on the hillsides throughout the Santa Monica Mountains and noticed some where the San Gabriel Mountains met the Mojave Desert. I heard that Death Valley had wildflowers, but I found myself hiking 17 miles of the Caliente Mountain Ridge Trail in the Carrizo Plain National Monument past a sea of vibrantly colored flowers dancing in the wind. I left a review on AllTrails stating that “It was a disgustingly beautiful day. Nothing but sunshine and wildflowers.”
I have been spoiled by the superbloom that appeared earlier in the year due to the warm weather. It was a tragically beautiful result of climate change with all the fickle weather. The wildflowers made hiking through the mountains in warm, sunny weather with blue skies feel like a dream, but I couldn’t help thinking about the cost of the Disneyland-size crowds happening now, leading into the spring and the hot summer weather driven by El Niño conditions to come. I saw the price of the glorious beauty in the wildflowers as a subtle, ominous nod towards the hellish dry spells to come, but I took up my pen in the meantime and continued to draw the vivid wildflowers near the hiking trails in my nature journal.
Here are several of the rough sketches I have done so far.
