{"id":1081590,"date":"2026-03-07T08:30:59","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T15:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.reporterherald.com\/?p=1081590&preview=true&preview_id=1081590"},"modified":"2026-03-07T08:31:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T15:31:36","slug":"winter-rains-turn-death-valley-national-park-into-fields-of-golden-blooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reporterherald.com\/2026\/03\/07\/winter-rains-turn-death-valley-national-park-into-fields-of-golden-blooms\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter rains turn Death Valley National Park into fields of golden blooms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Death Valley National Park is exactly what the name implies. It is one of the driest, hottest and most desolate areas in the world, with summer temperatures in the desert region reaching well into triple digits for days and sometimes weeks.<\/p>\n

The national park, which straddles the California-Nevada border, is one of the lowest in elevation, of all the parks, according to the National Park Service website<\/a>, and is a \u201cland of extremes.\u201d The steady drought and record summer heat lead to that.<\/p>\n

But those extremes give way to rare beauty, as is the case now.<\/p>\n

Desert sunflowers, yellow cups, brittlebush, gravel ghosts and desert five-spot are just some of the wildflowers now in bloom in the lowest regions of the park, including the Badwater Basin at 282 feet below sea level.<\/p>\n

Blooms are visible from Jubilee Pass, at the southern end of the park, up to Furnace Creek in the north.<\/p>\n

This is the \u201cbest bloom year\u201d since 2016, according to the National Park Service, stopping short of declaring this year\u2019s expanse of blooms a \u201csuperbloom,\u201d at least thus far. Superblooms occurred in 2016, 2005, and 1998.<\/p>\n