Wildflowers provide extra incentive for spring hikers — PHOTOS

The bright blooms and greenery of early March are signaling a vibrant spring wildflower season for Southern Nevada.

Thousands of desert blooms have already been delivered to lower elevations. Among them, bright yellow primroses and deep purple phacelias popping off at Lake Mead National Recreation Area and along the 3-mile River Mountains Trail in Boulder City. Pink sand verbena paired with white dune primroses have brightened otherwise barren spots along the Lower Colorado River.

For walkers regularly wandering the desert for exercise, extra color and beauty should provide additional workout incentive through April. Thanks to fall and winter rains and other optimal weather conditions, wildflowers like fiddlenecks, poppies, white woolly daisies and lupines have already been spotted this year along trails and roads.

Emerging flower buds and greenery that just received extra support from recent rains are hopeful signs of more bountiful displays to come in early March at lower elevations and, later in the month, in higher-elevation locations like Red Rock Canyon and Sloan Canyon National Conservation Areas.

Death Valley National Park’s spectacular wildflower show has been capturing most of the headlines, but Southern Nevada’s flowering plants also profited from the same hospitable weather conditions that graced the hottest place in North America with a banner bloom.

Here are three wildflowery Southern Nevada walking spots to explore.

River Mountains Trail

Not to be confused with the paved 34-mile River Mountains Loop Trail for bicyclists, the 3-mile River Mountains Trail is a dirt path for hikers with a parking lot in Boulder City near St. Jude’s Ranch for Children.

About 10 minutes into the hike in mid-February, desert blooms became a pleasant distraction — yellows from primroses, brittlebushes and fiddlenecks; purples from phacelia and a few chias; and whites from pincushions and tiny woolly daisies. Seen later from the path were blazing stars shining on rocky hillsides; little gold poppies standing elegantly together; and beavertail cactuses revealing buds that over the next couple of weeks should bring cheerful fuchsia flowers.

River Mountains Trail is a challenge when you take it all the way to the top (1,185 vertical feet in elevation gain), but walking to the midway point and back (3 miles) offers stunning views of geology and good looks at flowers blooming parallel to the trail, on the adjacent hills and in the wash running through a colorful, rocky landscape that’s pretty even when flowers aren’t present. Along the trail, hikers can also see Lake Mead in the distance and potentially spot bighorn sheep as well as a variety of lizards (and snakes), when the days return to being consistently above 75 degrees.

Lake Mead

Lake Mead is a go-to local stop for blooming beavertail cactus, and this year should be no exception. In mid-February, several plants each had 50 or more buds on them and looked as though they would be flowering in early March in the hilly area surrounding the parking lot for the Wetlands Trail in Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

That short trail is found just inside the park, after motorists present a park pass or pay $25 to get past Lake Mead’s east entrance off Henderson’s Lake Mead Boulevard. On the approach to and right after you’ve entered the park, be on the lookout for dramatic, tall and rare yellow flowers called silverleaf sunrays.

Shortly after entering the park, take a left turn onto Northshore Road. The parking lot for Wetlands Trail will be on the right. On that 1½-mile round-trip hike, the dirt path leads down to where the Las Vegas Wash flows into Lake Mead.

In addition to beavertail cactus, other flowers in the hilly area near the trailhead in mid-February were Mojave gold poppies, phacelia, primroses, a couple of desert five-spots and a couple of desert golds.

In past years, Lake Mead has also been a reliable place to find the elegant and rare Las Vegas bearpoppy, typically in mid-March and near a wash in the Pinto Valley area off Northshore Road. Other wildflowers, including the elusive desert five-spot have been seen in the same general location. En route to the Pinto Valley area, beavertail cactus and silverleaf sunrays also have been seen from the car along Northshore Road.

Cottonwood Cove

Lake Mead National Recreation Area not only has the country’s largest man-made reservoir and the smaller Lake Mohave to the south, but the park includes a long stretch of the Lower Colorado River and its surrounding shorelines and nearby land formations. That includes Cottonwood Cove and much of the 14-mile road leading from the town of Searchlight to the marina.

The drive on Cottonwood Cove Road alone is worth the 1½-hour trip from Las Vegas. After turning left off U.S. Highway 95 at Searchlight and driving through a residential area, travelers take the paved road through impressive stands of Joshua trees (some blooming) and then Mojave yuccas and then teddy bear chollas. In spots, yellow-flowered brittlebush brightened the drive.

Roadside wildflowers, which benefit from getting extra water that runs off the pavement during rains, also vary as the elevation gradually decreases on the approach to the Colorado River. Bright yellows of primroses and deep purples of phacelia remained the theme through the yucca and cholla zones.

Pulling over to the side of Cottonwood Cove Road a few times meant less-common sightings of purple mat, white desert stars, little gold poppies and a couple of Bigelow’s monkeyflowers, which like rocky hillsides. Elegant light purple lupines rose from the roadsides by the hundreds on our final late-February approach to Cottonwood Cove.

With a view of the widening Colorado River on its path to Lake Mohave, the Cottonwood Cove marina area includes a covered picnic area, a cafe and a hotel. Looking out toward the marina, visitors see hills to the right. For hikers, dirt paths lead up and down the hills and out toward a hidden-from-view neighboring cove used mostly by fishermen in winter.

Wildflowers colored up those hills and added more variety for desert bloom seekers. Pink sand verbena paired up with white dune primrose; desert gold daisies stretched toward the sun; desert chicory wrapped itself up in other plants for protection.

Flower power was on display.