Carrizo Plains National Monument in eastern San Luis Obispo County is one of California's most iconic wildflower viewing areas, but is this year's display worth the 150-mile drive from LA?
If you're looking for brightly colored blankets that cover the hills, the answer is no.
But if you want a beautiful outing with boundless skies, close encounters with birds, indigenous history and geology, and undulating waves of grass dotted with golden flecks , purple and orange, sure – but wait a week or more for the muddy roads to become passable again.
In early March, a friend and I planned a visit for April 14, largely because the rainy season usually ends at the end of March, the flowers are at their peak usually in early April, and with the cool temperatures This spring's batch, we think the weather will warm up at some point to encourage good displays. But the first two weeks of April brought plenty of cold showers to much of Central and Southern California, and during our visit, temperatures hovered in the mid-50s, and the rain fell on and off in between. Hopeful moment of blue sky followed by dark clouds and water falling into the curtains.
The best display of wildflowers is in a large photo from 2019 of golden fields carpeting the valley that hangs in the taproom of the Cuyama Buckhorn restaurant in New Cuyama.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
Truth be told, the best wildflower display we saw during our visit was a 2019 photo in the hotel restroom. Cuyama Buckhorn restaurant in New Cuyama – a beautiful setting of California gold mine (Lasthenia californica) growing very widely in Carrizo Plain During their peak bloom, they look like a golden carpet stretching for miles.
Truth be told, the best wildflower display we saw during our visit was a 2019 photo in the restroom of the Cuyama Buckhorn restaurant.
We saw fields of gold on our soggy ride, along with armies of soggy brown weeds and pockets of other wildflowers, such as purple owl clover (Castilleja exserta), is actually purple; yellow and white General cleaning tips (Layia speculum); and (rarely) California poppy (Eschscholzia californica). But what stands out most is the bright green of the California hills after a rainy spring.
The tall grass was thick and rippling, like wind on water, and birds frequently flew next to the car and sometimes overtook us because Soda Lake Road, a lone paved road, was full of potholes and deep puddles.
A super flower? Not then and probably not this year, according to rangers at the Goodwin Education Center in Carrizo Plain. The sign behind the front counter tells the story. The three most recent blooms – when wildflowers bloom so densely that they form patches of color on the hills – were in 2017, 2019 and 2023, when rainfall in the area ranged from October 1 to September 30 were low respectively. 12.29 inches, 16.31 inches and 15.32 inches. So far, rainfall in the 2024 water year is less than 10 inches – including the unseasonal rain that fell on April 14 – and more rain is not expected this season.
A sign at the Guy L. Goodwin Education Center shows less rain this year in the Carrizo Plain than in previous years with “super blooms” carpeting the hills.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
Super bloom in the Carrizo Plain on April 16, 2017.
(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)
View of the Carrizo Plain on April 14, 2024 while driving on the paved portion of Soda Lake Road at Carrizo Plain National Monument in San Luis Obispo County. Today, the plain is mostly grass, with scattered colors.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
The Carrizo Plain stretches 50 miles between the Temblor and Caliente Mountains, a grassy plain and drainage basin where the Chumash, Yokuts and other indigenous peoples hunted and traded before settlers tried their hand at with farming on dry land. There are some campgrounds, trails, and paved roads, but no services (like gas, water, food, and often cell phones). According to promotional materials, temperatures often exceed 100 degrees in the summer and drop to freezing levels in the winter. All but one of the roads, Soda Lake Road off Highway 58, are unpaved, and even Soda Lake Road becomes an unpaved, rutted road five miles south of the Education Center Goodwin, which has restrooms and picnic tables, along with books, gifts and school supplies. exhibit.
Besides bird watching, camping, hiking, and wildflower viewing, you can hike along the San Andreas Fault on the Wallace Creek trail, hike the trail along Soda Lake, which becomes “arid basin, full of salt during the dry season”, according to the brochure and studying the pictographs left by the indigenous people on Painted Rock, this time of year can only be traced Visit your ranger guide on Saturday (Reservation required).
It rained all day and the paved roads were almost impassable, except for a short route to the visitor center.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
But on Sunday, we couldn't do that because the muddy, unpaved road was so impassable that even rickshaws got stuck, according to forest rangers. Every few minutes someone comes into the center and asks the same question – is it safe to continue driving south on Soda Lake Road when the sidewalk ends? And each time, the rangers patiently responded that they certainly would not recommend any paved roads for two-wheeled vehicles, or even four-wheeled SUVs, unless they had a high clearance, nerves of steel and enough money to pay for a tow truck.
The few that make it through the back roads drive burly cars that look like they've been sloppily dipped in chocolate. When my friend and I were wondering what to do, we talked to the two people who were driving. They had hysterical looks on their faces and insisted that we not try, even though my Toyota Highlander SUV had four-wheel drive. “I can not believe it we worked,” said a wide-eyed woman in a large pickup truck with mud half way down the windshield. “You will never overcome.”
A few happy souls were walking in the rain on the platform road along Soda Lake, but the tiny parking area had so many mud spots and puddles that we decided to avoid that area, lest we get stuck. Instead, I grumpily drove back to California 58 north – even though I hate turn around – and go east. Our mood quickly improved on this breathtakingly winding ride through what looked like the verdant, tree-speckled Shire from Lord of the Rings.
Cuyama Buckhorn Restaurant in New Cuyama. Order the smoked oyster mushroom tacos and check out the taproom for a gorgeous 2019 photo op.
(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)
After a lovely drive south on Route 58, we turned west on California Route 33 near McKittrick, and within a few miles we entered a hellscape of undulating oil pumps and countless Power poles and wires between Derby Acres and Taft. Our destination is New Cuyama for a late-early lunch at Cuyama Buckhorn restaurant on California 166, which runs along the western border of the Carrizo Plain. I heartily recommend this restaurant, which despite its tiny town location has a bar, wine list and a classy, sophisticated menu (smoked oyster mushroom tacos with soft blue corn tortillas – okay). made at the restaurant – will make you fall in love), along with a remodeled hotel.
And luckily, by the time we finished, the clouds had cleared as the final leg took us through the west Los Padres National Forest on California 33, a nice but winding road where the previous rain had washed out some spots, so we had to stop frequently to wait for green lights to travel along the single lanes. The road is beautiful but slow and a bit hair-raising as day turns to night.
