Tiptoe Through the Tulips

Pepperflake and I left our “trusty” vans behind and walked 75 miles over the Inyo Range and through Death Valley to see the superbloom. We walked along a question mark route he only created and mapped the day before. A totally spontaneous and somewhat risky backpacking trip through usually unforgiving territory turned out to be wondrous in that old-fashioned hippie drifter kind of way. Because we were walking to see the flowers, mostly. After loitering over a few beers in Stovepipe Wells five days in to our hike, we hitch-hiked with a man celebrating his 30th birthday to Badwater to see as many flowers as we could. We slept in a golden canyon and spent the next morning desultorily hiking the badlands. Full circle, we hitched a ride back to our van homes from a couple who also live in a van. I’m so glad I took time out from my last-minute Spring backpacking adventure planning to stack another adventure on top. It’s really only adventure when it’s poorly planned, and this was almost definitely adventure.