Carrizo Plain

Snow Nymph · Post by **Snow Nymph** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 2:17 am

Great logo! WW!

Windwalker · Post by **Windwalker** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 6:33 pm

Wow Mountaineer, I'll make a note to visit Shell Creek too..Great Photos!

Thanks everybody!

SSSdave · Post by **SSSdave** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 12:16 am

Not much hope for wildflowers putting on a show there this dry year. But miracles have happened before like in the miracle March of 1991. I was out there a couple times last spring of 2005 while I was working Shell Creek. Not nearly as good as the El Nino spring of 1998 and 1995 was the most recent mindboggler. Like Antelope Valley and some of the other desert areas, it is amazing how much more impressive Carrizo looks in the big years.

Soda Lake is the largest in that area but for photos, I prefer some of the smaller alkali ponds that one has to hike a ways off the road to visit. Mornings in that large basin often have nicely calm conditions for reflections. However because all is so flat, there is little vertical component to one's image frames so working the smaller ponds gives one more interesting components to the closer opposite shores. And one needs to pray for some clouds.

...David

madeintahoe · Post by **madeintahoe** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 4:14 pm

Gorgeous pictures Windwalker...I love the little bunny..so very sweet.
Great logo for you!

Very pretty pictues Mountaineer

Thanks for sharing WW

mountaineer · Post by **mountaineer** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 5:25 pm

I just returned from there a few minutes ago. Incredibly bad weather. However, I still saw about 40 pronghorns, eagles, hawks, and a peregrine, wild pigs(about a dozen), and all manner of weird waterfowl. Awesome place and only took me about 55 minutes to get o Soda Lake.

BSquared · Post by **BSquared** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:30 pm

Where is this place? I lived in California for thirty years and never heard of it!

Windwalker · Post by **Windwalker** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:42 pm

Highway 58 west of Bakersfield.

http://www.blm.gov/ca/bakersfield/carri ... zomap.html

Post by **copeg** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:47 pm

BSquared wrote:Where is this place? I lived in California for thirty years and never heard of it!

The carrizo plain is pretty much due east of San Luis Obisbo ( http://3dparks.wr.usgs.gov/carrizo/ ) I've heard it referred to as one of the most remote places in California. I doubt that, but it IS pretty remote.

mountaineer wrote:I just returned from there a few minutes ago. Incredibly bad weather. However, I still saw about 40 pronghorns, eagles, hawks, and a peregrine, wild pigs(about a dozen), and all manner of weird waterfowl. Awesome place and only took me about 55 minutes to get o Soda Lake.

Cool. Sounds like you had a good time despite the weather!

BSquared · Post by **BSquared** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:50 pm

Ah, I begin to see. One of those national monuments set up during the last months of the Clinton administration, yes? I'd left California twenty years earlier, which would explain something. But I do recognize the area. Thanks! Wow, pronghorns! Who'da thunk it? I spent a couple of years in Wyoming and of course saw plenty there, but in California? Definitely cool! If I'm ever out that way, I'll definitely have to check it out. Thanks!

mountaineer · Post by **mountaineer** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:09 pm

Right now is when I want to be there! The clouds have probably more or less cleared and there is a full moon. Can you imagine how cool time exposures of that desolate landscape under moonlight would be? That is where my next moonlight trip will be. I don't mean pictures OF the moon, but pictures utilizing 1 min+ exposures and just the moons illumination of the landscape. Here is one such shot I took in Morro bay last month. Notice the blurred masts due to the long exposure.This one was taken about midnight.

High Sierra Topix

Carrizo Plain

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