I am leading a horseback photo workshop starting in the middle of March.  We are photographing the desert north of Phoenix.  Any of you who live in the area have a prediction as to how the flowers will be this year?  We are going either way, I am just hoping to have an idea of how the flowers are before I get there.  Going to be a very exciting trip!!! I will be about 10 days horseback in the desert photographing (the workshop is only 4 days, the rest is just me and the outfitter) and I am super excited!!!!  Let me know your thoughts!

Cheers!
Les

Not much going on - I was just in the area to the North on Saturday. Where will you be riding? A few poppies here and there but no massive bloom. in a good year, this is the week where things explode. We had no rain until January and February. You need rain in November and December in addition to Jan and Feb for a good bloom. A moderate later bloom is possible but it's not going to be a really great year. We've only had two really good years in the last 15.

We are riding McDowell Mountain park for the workshop but I will be riding other areas around Cave Creek before the workshop. Either the way, even without flowers the desert should be really pretty. Thanks for the input.

Les

I wasn't too far from the McDowell Mts. on Saturday and like I said there were a few clumps of roadside poppies in places but the sides of the mountains aren't lit up like they are in a good year. But do check out Usery Mountain Park which isn't far away from there, it's usually a good gauge for the other places like Lost Dutchman and so forth.

It does look like Bartlett Lake, up near Cave Creek isn't bad:
http://www.desertusa.com/wildflo/az.html

This site reports the status of wild flowers at many desert locations in the southwest (Phoenix area as well), it is updated daily with photos.
http://www.desertusa.com/wildflo/wildupdates.html
Good Luck

Excellent! Thanks for the help guys.

A few more sites you might check out for Arizona Wildflower reports are:
Arizona State Parks:  http://www.pr.state.az.us/rangercam/index.html   (wildflower and cactus blooms at Arizona State Parks)
Wild in Arizona: http://wildinarizona.com/wordpress/ (reports by authors of Wild in Arizona book)
Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park: http://azstateparks.com/Parks/BOTH/index.html (Arizona’s oldest and largest botanical garden)

Sandy
Natural History Wanderings