The rainfall of winter 2017 enlivened wildflower growth throughout the Southwest. A weekend visit to the Carrizo Plain at just the right time in the spring allowed us to see one of the greatest flower shows in the world.
Tourists were arriving from Europe and Asia, some as groups touring California’s 2017 wildflower season and they were not disappointed. The flower colors blended into the blue horizons of the mountain tops and filled the valley in a Shangri-La surrrealness. The dominant hue was yellow, purple was close behind, there were broad fields of oranges and acres of reds, pinks and whites, all amid billions of stalks of green sprouting from every shade of soil.
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A solitary windmill contrasts nicely with wildflowers against the hillside.
Any stop along Elkhorn Road provides the photographer with a dazzling landscape.
Called an artist's palette by some, this popular view to McKittrick Peak is reached by hiking a mile into the Temblor Range from Elkhorn Road.
Road access from San Joachin Vallley to Carrizo Plain along Hurricane Road is long, winding, narrow and unpaved but rewarding, especially at the crest of the Temblor Range.
A map obtained Visitors Center provides a single view of the expansive plain through which runs the San Andreas Fault.
This brochure map shows the sawtooth shape of the monument's boundary, which carves around a number of ranches.
A wide aerial view of the plain with some of the waypoints as entered into the GPS.
The ephemeral lake is a haven of blue in the yellow and green covered hills surrounding it.
Proud stalks shoot up into the afternoon, looking east toward the approximate middle of the Temblor Range, Midway Peak.
Vast "lakes" of Phacelia, up to a half mile across, could be seen in the lowest places of valleys in the plain.
Taken with a 40X pocket zoom camera from a mile away, an outcrop of "badland" form spires of eroded ancient seafloor.
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