From serving guests on the dimly lit casino floor of Treasure Island to leading visitors through the bright blue skies of Red Rock Canyon, Brandi Hudak feels she’s traded up and finally found career fulfillment in Southern Nevada.

Hudak feels much more at peace in her role as an interpretive naturalist with the Southern Nevada Conservancy, the Bureau of Land Management’s nonprofit partner. On Wednesday, she led a curious group of about a dozen people on a guided wildflower hike through Pine Creek, one of the final stops of the national conservation area’s scenic loop.

The number of oohs and aahs grew as they traversed through the area. While Red Rock never quite rises to the “superbloom” level seen once a decade in Death Valley National Park, visitors are bound to find trails that are full of wildflowers in technicolor shades of yellow, purple, red and blue.

“That’s the beauty of going out on wildflower walks,” Hudak said. “A lot of time you’re focused on the hike, you’re focused on what’s in front of you, or the landscape. But if you just look down, there’s so many beautiful things coming out that we don’t always notice.”

Dozens of species to go find

At the beginning of the hike, Hudak passed out eight cards with different species on them for people to try to identify.

All of them materialized, from the electric blue desert larkspur to the magenta desert four o’clock, which generally waits until later in the afternoon to open its petals, as the name suggests.

Some of the wildflowers have ties to Native Americans. The misleadingly beautiful sacred datura, for instance, is poisonous and can cause hallucinations but has been used for eons in traditional rituals. Another species Hudak pointed out, the yerba santa, has been used in traditional medicine as a decongestant.

In general, the unseasonably early heat wave that baked the American West this year has ramped up the life cycles of the plants, Hudak said. Some species that don’t bloom until May are in full swing, and a few April staples are no longer visible.

The heat squashed any hopes of the superbloom in Death Valley lasting longer than a few weeks, too.

Hudak said snow fell all the way at ground elevations this February within Red Rock. But the snow rapidly melted, supercharging the typical wildflower season and altering the traditional calendar.

“We have already passed a big bloom stage for a lot of our flowers,” Hudak said.

‘The big answer is curiosity’

It was the second wildflower hike of the season for Julie and Paul Ferries, a couple from Michigan visiting family in Southern Nevada.

The longtime University of Michigan fans got to see their team’s famous vivid yellow reflected in nature — and not at a very high cost of much exercise or intense levels of effort. The Ferrieses caught the Death Valley superbloom before it was gone but said they found Red Rock just as impressive.

“If you notice, we’re not hiking,” Julie Ferries joked. “We’re looking at flowers.”

To be interested in wildflowers, Hudak told the group, people need not be botanists. She asked the group what one does need to complete a successful adventure looking for wildflowers this spring.

“Eyes?” someone responded.

“The big answer is curiosity,” Hudak declared.

The next wildflower hike will take place at Ice Box Canyon next Thursday, with the final wildflower-specific one slated for April 25 in the evening at Calico Basin. To reserve a spot, visit the Southern Nevada Conservancy’s website at redrockcanyonlv.org/events.

Hudak encourages visitors to download the Seek app, powered by the species identification company iNaturalist, which can help them identify species they may not be familiar with.

Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.