Valley

In early spring, the California mountain town of Julian sits suspended between seasons. At more than 4,000 feet, up in the Cuyamaca Mountains, it rests among coastal live oak woodlands and Coulter pine forests. Snow sometimes dusts the surrounding slopes, melting by afternoon into damp earth as manzanita and mountain lilac begin to flower. Along Main Street, the mingled scents of woodsmoke and apple pie drift from storefronts.

It is here that my journey along State Route 78 begins, following its long eastward descent from the mountain forest into the stark badlands of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, then skirting the southern edge of the Salton Sea, crossing the Algodones Dunes and continuing toward the Colorado River — a 140-mile corridor spanning one of the most dramatic ecological transitions across public lands in the American Southwest.

This road trip continues a series exploring California’s overlooked scenic highways, inspired in part by artist Earl Thollander’s “Back Roads of California,” whose sketches and travel notes celebrated a slower way of seeing. After tracing Highway 127 along the edge of Death Valley, the journey now shifts south.

Julian Cafe and Bakery, the start of the trip off Route 78.

(Josh Jackson)

Within minutes of leaving town, the pavement twists downward through tight turns and steep grades as the mountain air begins to warm, the vegetation giving way to chaparral and scattered juniper, then to the stark silhouettes of ocotillo and Mojave yucca. By the time it reaches the Pacific Crest Trail crossing 12 miles east of Julian, travelers have already descended nearly 2,000 feet.

Here, the highway passes quietly into Anza-Borrego, homeland of the Kumeyaay, Cahuilla and Cupeño peoples. At nearly 650,000 acres — just smaller than Yosemite — the park unfolds as a vast mosaic of mountains, badlands and open desert valleys extending far beyond the reach of the pavement.

Wildflowers along the route.

(Josh Jackson)

Bri Fordem, executive director of the Anza-Borrego Foundation, said the landscape reveals itself slowly to first-time visitors. “I think a lot of people drive right by it and go, ‘Oh yeah, there’s a desert there,’” she said. “But when you stop and you go a little slower and take a closer look, a whole world opens up.”

That invitation begins at mile 18, where the Yaqui Pass Road turnoff leads northeast toward the desert basin and the gateway community of Borrego Springs. The 2.8-mile Borrego Palm Canyon Trail offers one of the park’s most accessible routes into the desert’s interior. Cholla gardens and brittlebush rise from pale alluvial slopes, and a seasonal stream leads to one of California’s few native fan palm oases.

In wet winters, the valleys beyond town awaken in color as sand verbena, desert sunflower, evening primrose and pincushion gather in brief, luminous blooms across the desert floor. The Anza-Borrego Foundation tracks these seasonal displays and offers guidance on how to witness them responsibly.

The short detour returns to Highway 78 along Borrego Springs Road, where the pavement drops abruptly through the Texas Dip near mile 27 — a stark, cinematic wash where scenes from the closing sequence of “One Battle After Another” were filmed. Wandering through the wash, the mind drifts not to the film but to the flash floods that move through this channel after heavy rains, sudden torrents cutting and reshaping the valley floor in a matter of hours.

Ocotillo plants rise up from the desert floor in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

(Josh Jackson)

The sun hangs in the middle of the sky as I drive toward one of the most rapidly changing shorelines in California. From almost any vantage point, the Salton Sea appears lifeless — a gray expanse rimmed with salt and windblown dust. But at its southern terminus, that impression begins to shift. The basin gathers into shallow wetlands where movement returns to the landscape.

Sixty miles from Julian, I turn onto Bannister Road and bump north along a gravel track for three miles into the basin, to a parking lot 164 feet below sea level. The lot sits within Unit 1 of the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge. A short walk along an irrigation canal leads to a weathered observation deck rising two stories above a patchwork of saturated flats where saltgrass, iodine bush and cattail take root. Here, the Pacific Flyway compresses into a living mosaic of wings, water and soil. Each spring, hundreds of thousands of birds gather here to feed and rest before lifting north again, following migratory paths far older than the farms and highways that now define the valley.

The wetlands near the Salton Sea provide a vital habitat for birds.

(Josh Jackson)

The place overwhelms the senses: a wash of emerald against open sky, thousands of snow geese honking in chorus, orange-crowned warblers and Abert’s towhees singing in the trees, and the persistent tang of salt in the air.

I meet three birders standing quietly on the platform, scanning the horizon through binoculars and recounting the 73 avian species they had tallied over the last two days — burrowing owls, American avocets, sandhill cranes and black-necked stilts among them. For 30 minutes we watch a northern harrier on the hunt, dive-bombing blue-winged and cinnamon teal, though he always comes up empty. Between scans of the horizon, we bond over “Listers,” the 2025 documentary that turns obsessive birdwatching into both comedy and a tale of devotion.

A burrowing owl stands in the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge.

(Josh Jackson)

Leaving the refuge, the vibrant color palette and moisture give way to muted browns and the returning austerity of desert air. By mile 97, the road rises to the Hugh T. Osborne Overlook, where the landscape shifts once again, opening into a vast ocean of sand.

The Algodones Dunes stretch toward the horizon in pale, wind-sculpted ridges, a narrow ribbon of shifting terrain running south into Mexico. The highway passes directly through their center.

From the overlook, the road reads as a line dividing two expressions of the same dune system. To the south lie the Bureau of Land Management’s Imperial Sand Dunes, where dune buggies and motorcycles trace arcs across bare slopes. North of the pavement, the North Algodones Dunes Wilderness holds a quieter terrain, where sunflower, ephedra and honey mesquite anchor the sand in subtle defiance of the wind.

A person walks along the Algodones Dunes.

(Josh Jackson)

Here the road becomes a boundary between different ways of moving through — and loving — the same landscape: speed and stillness, noise and silence, crowds and solitude.

By late afternoon, the final miles carry me east toward the Colorado River, where it meanders past willow and cottonwood. The light softened toward sunset, an evening echo of the same violet sky that hovered over Julian at the start of the day. After 140 miles, my road trip had come to an end. Yet as I pitched my tent that night, the motion of the landscapes lingered in mind.

The Colorado continued its long course south. Snow geese lifted north from refuge marshes. Wind reshaped the dunes, erasing the day’s tracks. Wildflowers that had briefly lit the desert floor would soon fade as heat gathered strength. The road ended, but the living systems it crossed moved steadily onward, already turning toward the next season.

Road trip planner: State Route 78

Highway 78 illustrated map.

(Illustrated map by Noah Smith)

The route: Julian to Palo Verde.

Distance: 140 miles (one way).

Drive time: 3 hours straight through; allow a full day for stops.

Best time to go: October through April. Summer temperatures frequently exceed 110 degrees.

Fuel and essentials:

• Julian (Mile 0): Gas station, Julian Market and Deli, lots of restaurants.
• Borrego Springs (Mile 18): Gas station, groceries, cafes.
• Brawley (Mile 74): Gas station, restaurants.

Eat and drink:

Camping:

Lodging:

Hike and explore:

Safety notes:

• Water: Carry at least 1 gallon per person per day.
• Connectivity: Cell service is dependable along the route.
• Wildlife: Watch for bighorn sheep and coyotes on the road, especially at dawn and dusk.

  

  Wildflowers along Highway 78.

  (Josh Jackson)

THIS valley might look like your average spot in Switzerland with towering mountains and pretty chalet adorned villages – but it has a whopping 72 waterfalls.

It’s called Lauterbrunnen which literally translates to ‘loud springs’ after the crashing sound of falling water.

It’s known for its car-free mountain villages filled with pretty chalets and shops – but what draws visitors to it is the sheer amount of cascading waterfalls, of which there are over 70.

One of the largest and most well-known is the Staubbachfall Waterfall, which sits in the village of Lauterbrunnen – named after the valley.

It’s 297metres tall and is the highest free-falling waterfall in Switzerland.

In perspective, this is almost as high as London’s Shard, which stands at 309metres tall.

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There are lots of viewpoints to see the Staubbachfall Waterfall, and those who want to get up close and personal can take the small path to the foot of the falls.

During the summertime, the falls are illuminated in the evenings.

Another waterfall is called Mürrenbachfall, which is even taller, and the water falls from a height of 417 metres.

There’s also the Trümmelbach Falls which a series of 10 unique underground waterfalls – and the largest of their kind Europe.

These impressive waterfalls have made their way through a mountain valley over thousands of years.

Visitors can see them on man-made paths, which are ticketed and cost around £15.

Thanks to its position at the base of the Swiss Alps, Lauterbrunnen is also a sought out ski destination.

As part of the Jungfrau Ski Region, it’s a great place to hit the slopes with 275km of runs and 40 ski lifts.

The best time to visit depends on whether you want to see the waterfalls in all their spring glory, or explore the village in time for ski season.

For those who want to take advantage of hiking, visit between June and September.

Or for a winter wonderland experience, go between January and February.

Unsurprisingly, visitors have described it as “breathtaking” and like “stepping into a storybook”.

The valley has also been compared to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

And it could have been the inspiration for the author, who visited in 1911.

Not only can you explore the village of Lauterbrunnen by foot, you can also see it and its neighbouring villages by cableway.

Just opposite the main train station is a 100 person cableway that runs from Lauterbrunnen to Mürren.

In just four minutes it climbs 686 metres and has been said to have “breathtaking views.”

Other nearby mountain villages are Wengen, Mürren, Gimmelwald and Stechelberg.

For more on exploring Europe, one writer went on Europe’s ‘Route 66’ with 46 attractions and beautiful beaches along the way.

And another writer went hiking in Switzerland and found cheese, chocolate and a new set of muscles she never knew she had.

Imagine waking up early, eager to peep dazzling carpets of brilliant orange flowers at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. Instagram posts promised a spectacle.

You drive to the reserve north of Los Angeles, but the rolling hills aren’t alive with color.

Bummer. The bloom is over.

Thanks to AI, and a local scientist, such disappointment may soon be a thing of the past.

This year, Steve Klosterman, a biologist who works on natural climate solutions, launched a “wildflower forecast,” powered by a deep-learning model, satellite imagery and weather data.

In a sense, Klosterman, of Santa Monica, developed the tool to meet his own need.

Last spring, the Midwest transplant was hankering to see some wildflowers. He assumed there was some online resource that offered predictions or leveraged satellite images.

“Surely, there must be something,” he recalled thinking. “But there was nothing.”

There are tools. The state reserve operates a live cam trained on one swath of land. Theodore Payne, a California native plant nursery and education center, runs a wildflower hotline, where people can call in and hear weekly recorded reports on hot spots.

“These are all essential resources,” Klosterman said. “At the same time, they’re limited.”

Klosterman isn’t green when it comes to plants. His PhD, at Harvard, focused on the timing of new leaves on trees in the spring and color change in the fall.

For a class project, a team he was part of built a website that predicted those leaf changes in the Boston area. It was a hit.

California poppies bloom in Lancaster, near the state natural reserve, in mid-March.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

To create the poppy bloom predictor, Klosterman turned to AI initially developed for medical imaging. He has harnessed it to instead analyze satellite images of the Antelope Valley.

The model scans 10-by-10-meter squares of land to determine whether poppies are present by their telltale orange color. (It also identifies tiny yellow flowers called goldfields.)

The model is trained on satellite images — which go back nine years — along with past weather data.

It then uses the current forecast, and recent flower status, to peer into the future.

If the mercury is going to hit 100 degrees and wind is picking up — and in previous years that led to withering flowers — that will guide the prediction.

Right now, the model can forecast five days out and is, as Klosterman puts it, “very much a work in progress.” It would be better, more powerful, if it had 100 years to learn from.

As more data are collected, it might someday be able to forecast a week or two out.

Right now, poppies are popping at the reserve in the western Mojave Desert.

It rained throughout the fall and into winter, and poppies need at least seven inches of rain to make a good showing, said Lori Wear, an interpreter at the reserve.

Snowfall in January seems to push them to another level, but that didn’t happen this season. So it’s a good bloom, but not extraordinary, she said.

Still, poppies — California’s state flower — blanket swaths of the protected land.

“It almost looks like Cheeto dust,” she said, “like somebody had Cheetos on their fingers and just smeared it on the landscape.”

Poppies here have typically peaked around mid-April, but variable weather in recent years has made it hard to predict, she said. Klosterman believes right now is likely the zenith.

Also blooming now: goldfields, purple grape soda lupine and owl’s clover. Wear described the latter, also purple, as looking like a “short owl with little eyes looking at you and a little beak.”

An SUV drives through blooms near the reserve. “It almost looks like … somebody had Cheetos on their fingers and just smeared it on the landscape,” said Lori Wear, an interpreter at the reserve.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

On Sunday, Klosterman experienced the blooms for himself, using his technology as a guide.

It offers predictions in two forms. The first is the amount of the valley — shown in a satellite image — covered in poppies and goldfields, expressed as a percentage. The other is an overlay of orange and yellow splotches on the land.

The map showed a fairly high concentration of poppies near a stretch of Highway 138. He went there and, lo and behold, vibrant flowers awaited him. He sent proof: a smiling selfie in front of a sea of blossoms.

Klosterman’s tool may help answer arguably more complex questions than poppy or no poppy, such as a more precise understanding of the conditions the flowers need to thrive.

Experts know rain is key, but it’s more complicated than that.

Steve Klosterman takes a selfie in a field of California poppies.

(Steve Klosterman)

Heavy rain can supercharge invasive grasses, crowding out the blooms. Natives actually tend to do better after several years of drought, once invasives not adapted to the arid climate die out. That’s what led to an epic superbloom in 2017, Joan Dudney, an assistant professor of forest ecology at UC Santa Barbara, told The Times in 2024.

Klosterman wondered if the recent heatwave would desiccate them. But his model didn’t show that, and neither did his trip. So it’s possible other factors play a significant role in their persistence, such as length of day.

The model could also shed light on what could happen to the flowers as the climate warms. Will they migrate to the north? Will there be fewer blooms?

To game that out, Klosterman said you could invent and plug in a weather forecast with higher temperatures.

For now, Klosterman’s forecast is limited to the Antelope Valley. But if it expands to other areas, and other flower types, it could help people like Karina Silva.

Silva woke up at 5 a.m. last Wednesday to travel from her Las Vegas home to Death Valley National Park, hoping to beat the heat and the crowds to the superbloom.

But several hours later, she and her husband, David, were still trying to find it.

The hillside behind her was sprinkled with desert golds, but the display fell short of the riotous eruption of flowers posted on social media. The superbloom ended in early March, according to park officials.

“I was just thinking it was going to be this explosion of different colors,” Silva said by the side of the road overlooking Badwater Basin.