The bloom is big and so are the crowds at Picacho Peak State Park.
A colorful crop of wildflowers is drawing a high volume of visitors to the park 40 miles northwest of Tucson, where people are literally lining up to see the blossoms.
By about 11 a.m. Monday, the row of vehicles waiting to get into the park stretched for roughly half a mile, from the entrance station to the Interstate 10 underpass.
Once they make it through the front gate, visitors are greeted by patches of orange-yellow poppies, purple lupines and other native annuals. Below its bare cliffs, the peak is cloaked in green, with yellow fingers of flowers stretching up its slopes.
Michelle Thompson, spokeswoman for Arizona State Parks and Trails, said what’s happening now rivals the “phenomenal” crop of flowers in 2019, which caused visitor volume at Picacho Peak to triple that year.
“This is pretty darn close,” she said. “It really is another super bloom.”
Thompson said the “enormous crowds” began showing up a little over a week ago, as soon as the weather warmed up from that snowy cold snap in early March.
Picacho Peak isn’t the only state park that gets wildflowers, but with its limited space and close proximity to Interstate 10, it tends to fill up quickly.
This year’s bloom is big enough to be seen from I-10, drawing in additional visitors who might not have stopped otherwise, Thompson said.
Photographer Fred Hood drove up from Tucson Monday morning to make his first visit to Picacho Peak and get some pictures of the bloom.
Tucson photographer Fred Hood frames a shot of wildflowers along the Barrett Loop at Picacho Peak State Park on Monday.
He said he is a bit more comfortable photographing landscapes and wildlife. “Flowers are kind of my nemesis.”
Fellow Tucson photographer Anu Condon said she waited about two weeks in hopes of catching the flowers at their peak. She also made sure to go on a Monday, in hopes of limiting the number of people wandering around in the background of her photos.
“I’ve been watching with envy everybody else’s pictures on Facebook and Instagram,” Condon said, but it was worth the wait.
She said this year’s bloom at Picacho is bigger and better than the last one she shot there in 2020.
Wildflowers in bloom at Picacho Peak State Park on Monday.
Photographer Anu Condon capturing wildflowers in bloom at Picacho Peak State Park on Monday.
“It’s such a good year for it,” Condon said, motioning to the colorful scene around her. “This is just gorgeous.”
Some visitors brought their dogs along with them to admire the wildflowers.
Alex Zelazo came to Picacho Peak with her pet bird — a shiny, black-and-white hornbill named Horton, who has an impressive curved beak and his own business cards.
Alex Zelazo, an animal care supervisor at the Reid Park Zoo, poses with her pet hornbill, Horton, during their visit to Picacho Peak State Park to check out the wildflowers on Monday.
Horton hatched 3 years ago at the Reid Park Zoo, where Zelazo works as an animal care supervisor. She ended up adopting the toucan-like bird because he has special needs.
Zelazo likes to load Horton into a sling around her neck and take him on outings around Tucson. Pictures on his Facebook and Instagram pages show him playing in the snow on Mount Lemmon and posing among the blossoms at Picacho Peak, though he seemed more interested in the rocks than the flowers.
Thompson said park staff members began preparing for the onslaught in February because they knew what was coming.
Wildflowers in bloom at Picacho Peak State Park on Monday.
They’ve been helped in recent days by rangers from other, quieter locations around the state and administrative staff members from the agency’s central office in Phoenix, she said.
If it’s not there already, the bloom at Picacho appears to be approaching its peak.
“Everything is weather-dependent, of course,” Thompson said, “but we probably have another two weeks of the flowers looking really, really good” there.
Wildflowers in bloom at Picacho Peak State Park on Monday.
As a result, visitors should be prepared to wait for up to an hour to get into the park. Thompson’s advice: go on a weekday and get there early to avoid the big crowds that seem to show up at the gate after about 9 a.m.
Then, once you make it in, be patient and courteous by staying on marked hiking trails and only parking on the pavement in designated areas, she said.
Park staff members have put up dozens of temporary signs indicating where people can walk and park their cars, but Thompson said there are always those individuals who insist on picking flowers or tromping out into them to get the perfect photo.
“That’s always a problem during wildflower season. Some people seem to think flowers can only be enjoyed when you’re standing directly on top of them,” she said.
Park officials say the wildflowers there rival the 2019 "super bloom."
In parts of California recently, land managers have been forced to close several popular bloom locations because the plants were being destroyed by crowds of people ostensibly there to see them.
“We definitely don’t want to get to that point here,” Thompson said.
We won’t, if everyone follows one simple rule: “Respect the flowers so other people can enjoy them,” she said.
