After years of drought, California has received more rains than I can remember in the past few months. The conditions are ripe for a superbloom in the Carrizo Plains National Monument. I drove up Friday night and camped along Shell Creek Road in a pullout in a gloomy night, hoping the weather will turn better the next day.
Next day morning, it was still foggy and overcast, but the sun will peek through at times. We got a tip from another fellow photographer to check out Bitterwater Road and it did not disappoint. The rolling hills were covered with bright yellow flowers with some oranges mixed in between, and we're not even in the Carrizo Plain proper yet!
Once we drove into the plain and saw how crowded it was, we decided to take the Elkhorn Road and explore the foothills first. It was a mild off-road adventure, but very relaxing, definitely beats sucking on someone else's dust trails down in Soda Lake Road.
However, it was unavoidable. In order to see some of those purple patches, we had to drive down into the plain and check it out up close. Eventually, we had to drive high up the Cliente Mountain to find a spot to camp for the night. The roads up the mountains were kind of rutted, but the views on top was quite spectacular. I still got the feelings that we were there a bit too early for the full bloom, so maybe we'll come back to revisit in a few weeks. See the full set of photos [HERE].
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