Superblooms take place in some desert climates after unusually wet winters, when typically dormant seeds and plants wake up. The result, especially in California and Arizona, can be hillsides carpeted in color as thousands of flowers pop open around the same time.
“There is not a hard and fast definition of superbloom,” said Michelle Thompson, chief of communications for Arizona State Parks. “The last time we had it was in 2019, and it depends on the weather and seed germination year to year.”
While California is full of superblooms at the moment, they are a little harder to find in Arizona, but there are still plenty of flowers that make the trip worthwhile.
The springtime weather in Phoenix this year, with highs in the 70s and 80s (or even lower with a little rain), has made for a pleasant hiking season, too. It’s only a two-hour flight from Denver to Phoenix, making it easy to come for a weekend of hiking in the city’s surrounding mountains.
If you do make the trip with your sights set on seeing some floral colors on the trails, be sure to follow some basic hiking wisdom.
“Please don’t pick or trample the flowers,” said Thompson. “These flowers blooming today create the seeds for later. Seeds from several years ago can be the ones blooming now.” In other words, your Instagram photo will just have to be taken from the trail.
Also, try to hike earlier in the day to avoid the hottest temperatures, and always bring water. Heat exhaustion can happen suddenly since there is little to no shade on these trails.
Start your hiking adventure with a walk around the Desert Botanical Gardens, which has the Harriet K. Maxwell Desert Wildflower Loop Trail. Here you can learn about the names of many native flowering plants so you can recognize them when out hiking. A lot of families come here, so they can make use of the restrooms, paved walkways, and on-site restaurant — and get tips on how to help protect the wildflowers out on the trails.
I was first directed to the Lost Dutchman State Park about 40 miles east of downtown Phoenix in the Sonoran Desert. The park is at the base of the Superstition Mountains and blends into the Tonto National Forest.
While there were some wildflowers in bloom here, it was not the abundance I was searching for. There were classic yellow-orange California poppies, the spindly apricot-orange globemallow, tall saguaro cactus, bright yellow brittlebrush, and some pale purple flowers, but they were spread out from one another and not the carpet of color. The mountains were a perfect backdrop for these blooms, and you have your pick of trails from 1/4 mile to 4 miles. It is an option to take longer hikes by connecting with national forest trails.
One park volunteer suggested that I head for the newly opened Peralta Regional Park, part of Pinal County Open Space and Trails, just on the other side of the mountains, where she had recently seen poppies in bloom.
Finding this park was a little tricky since Google Maps will direct you to Florence, about twice the distance. Go to Peralta Trail in Gold Canyon and past the homes (signs will direct you), then 4 miles on an unimproved road to the park entrance.
This is where I found what looked more like a superbloom with nearly a forest of the classic saguaro cacti surrounded largely by the yellow-orange California poppies up and down the hillsides.
Large trail signs are at parking areas for selecting trails, but they lack distances, making it difficult to gauge how long it might take, so it’s helpful to scan the QR code and download the trail map.
Just like with wildflower hikes in Colorado, the types of wildflowers you will see and when they bloom will depend in part on elevation. Some wildflower areas in Arizona have already peaked this year, such as Picacho Peak between Phoenix and Tucson. This area is known for dependably having a lot of poppy and bluish-purple lupines blooming in the early spring of a wet winter year.
Instead, I found good wildflower conditions at Piestawa Peak, which tops out at just over 2,600 feet above sea level in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve. The yellow brittlebrush were in bloom all over, as well as some ocotillo cactus with their small red flowers that can attract hummingbirds. More obvious here was how the highest concentrations of wildflowers were found in the washes, where moisture collects and germinates the seeds.
South Mountain Park and Preserve has more than 50 miles of trails for hikes, equestrians and mountain bikers, and when I was there the trails were flanked by yellow brittlebrush everywhere. There was also some globemallow mixed in here and there with the brittlebrush, and a few saguaro cacti, too. Many hikers aim for Dobbins Lookout at 2,330 feet, the highest accessible point in the park.
For hikers headed to Arizona later this spring, Thompson recommends Catalina State Park in Tucson or Red Rock State Park in Sedona. There are no guarantees with nature so there could be rain or it could simply be too late for the best wildflower blooms, but part of the fun is the chase in seeking out the superbloom along the Arizona trails.
