Carrizo Plain National Monument wildflowers

[SSSdave]

On another board, person below posted this:

Today, Monday, I spoke with a ranger at Carrizo Plain. He said the majority of the color is on the south end of Soda Lake Rd. Driving further north toward the visitors' center, you can see a large purple display from the overlook hill. (The flowers were far away). He said starting in 3 days, they will have a wildflower hotline updated on Thursdays and Sundays. 805-475-2035. He anticipates the peak bloom will be early and mid-April. He said some of the roads off of Soda Lake Rd currently are closed (even 4WD) due to mud. They have had to dig some vehicles out. I didn't see any poppies, but lots of yellow, some purple, orange and white. Driving 10 miles up the hwy from Maricopa to Soda Lake Rd, the many of the hills had yellow flowers -- a beautiful sight. Susan Manley

Note I just returned from 10 day wildflower road trip into California desert areas. That alkali mud is very sticky stuff and often much deeper than it looks. Decades ago driving those dirt roads with at the time a brand new Legacy AWD was barely able to escape one spot.

David

[maverick]

Yep, a swat of purple, but yellow still remains the overwhelming dominant color.
https://flic.kr/p/T4PXEU

[SSSdave]

For those interested in California spring wildflowers it is finally game time. Now or wait several years again.

Gear all prepped, just need to buy some ice then load up the Forester tomorrow morning. Expect to hit the road south in the morning after the commute. My 10-day trip into the Sonora Desert areas was very successful photographically and have already created a feature on my 2017 Trip Chronicles starting on page 2 from this index page:

http://www.davidsenesac.com/2017_Trip_C ... les-0.html

Tomorrow and half of Friday are forecast to be windy across the state including at the monument as an inside slider system dives across the north part of the state and then into the Great Basin. That will serve my purpose of taking a peak at Shell Creek and then driving the familiar dirt roads at Carrizo Plain evaluating where to work Saturday that will probably have lowest breezes over the next week. Sunday and Monday the breeze may pick up a bit and then lower for a couple days before the next trough approaches that could bring some rain by Friday.

Desertusa is showing via reports and pics what I expected to occur now a week plus later after the 0.41 inches of rain at the CPNM weather station 3/22>24. Thus on admittedly meager information, this next week is looking to be the time to go although I also expect the Temblor Range as usual could be best a bit later. In any case I may not stay long at CPNM before driving down to northern areas of Joshua Tree NP for a few days and instead hitting most of CPNM the following week. Or if it looks ripe enough may stay at CPNM and drive down to JTNP after that.

David