Death Valley Super Bloom

Flowers and desert and dust, oh my!

By Peak Design

A Run THROugH THE BADLANDS

Lawrence Lander (Peak Design’s resident graphic designer/brand strategist/classic country crooner) is no stranger to the desert. A youth and adolescence in his native Texas ensured plenty of time traipsing around the Trans-Pecos and American Southwest, a camera never far out of reach. His (relatively) new home in California has not derailed the desert love affair in the slightest, only changed the angle of approach for his explorations. Case in point, a recent jaunt through Death Valley and Death Valley National Park.

YOU BELONG AMONG THE WILDFLOWERS

Usually coupled with El Niño, Super Blooms in Death Valley are rare displays of millions of flowers in simultaneous blossom. There is no hunting for these flowers—they line the roads and blanket the ground at all elevations throughout Death Valley National Park (the largest National Park in the lower 48 states), begging for a portrait and a quick sniff. The primordial landscape behind and under the bloom is a jarring and breathtaking background.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

The Valley’s fleeting display of botanical wonder and the reasonable March temperatures meant that Lawrence (seen below with his trusty Everyday Messenger in Heritage Tan) occasionally found himself surrounded by fellow visitors in the midst of otherwise absolute desolation. We’re not ones for crowds, but in this case, the more the merrier. Our national parks are among our country’s greatest treasures, and we hope that they continue to beckon and enchant more and more people.

Bag: The Everyday Messenger in Heritage Tan

ONWARD TO STRANGENESS

As much as we’d all love to permanently camp out in such a enormous park and explore its subtleties with a longer trip, Lawrence had to keep moving and get to Las Vegas so he could help the rest of the team spread the news far and wide about Peak Design at WPPI 2016.