Spring break 2017: After this winter's enormous rainfall, we wanted to see if some wildflowers popped up. We headed to Carrizo Plain. Our timing was good.
The bloom was truly amazing. All of Carrizo Plain, mile after mile, was covered in flowers. It wasn't possible to step off the road without wading into the flowers.
We weren't the only people appreciating the flowers. On our first night (Saturday), we encountered a lot of people camping up in the Caliente Range, and our usual sites were already occupied. We ended up exploring a little further out, and found solitude with a view on a disused dead-end road.
The next day we drove across the valley on dusty Simmler Road, where we found the densest and most extensive wildflower bloom we've ever seen. There were a fair number of people out, but it's a big place and the crowd thinned out fast once we walked a short distance from the road. That night we camped at the top of the Temblor Range on the East side of the Plain, enjoying a commanding view of Carrizo with water in Soda Lake and a blanket of flowers. And wind. The weather was changing, and our ridgetop site put us in the windiest spot. Washing the dinner dishes was a challenge, but we slept snugly in the rooftop tent. The next day we took a wandering drive through the east side of the Temblor Range, continually awed by the profusion of flowers. The road down in the canyon was heavily eroded, and I was very glad to have the locking rear differential to get us unstuck as we were forced to cross a steep gully on the diagonal.
On our last night, we camped in the low hills in the southern end of Carrizo Plain. The night turned unexpectedly cold (frost on the ground). We watched for mammals at dawn and dusk, but only saw a lone antelope squirrel.
We used the Gaia GPS app on our phones. Click here to see our track.
Dates: April 1-4, 2017
