Date: March 7, 2026
Place: Carrizo Plain National Monument, Paso Robles, California
Place: Carrizo Plain National Monument, Paso Robles, California
Coordinates: 35.116413, -119.620238
Length: 0.7 mile
Level: easy
Level: easy
The drive on Elkhorn Road at Carrizo Plain National Monument merits its own blog post. On my drive I did stop twice for short wildflower walks. I posted about the first one and here I am writing about the second walk I took, about half way through Elkhorn Road.
There were many places along Elkhorn Road where I stopped to take photos but when I reached that nameless point I was compelled to stay and explore some more on foot.
At first I just looked around. West of the road was a vast field of bloom - here was definitely a superbloom event.
The most dominant color I saw was the goldfields yellow, but there were large patches of white flowers which I assumed were creamcups.
The yellow flowers carpet was indeed of goldfields. It is a most fitting name for this wildflower, and I admire this gold much more than I do the actual metal.
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| Common Goldfields, Lasthenia gracilis |
I brought my gaze down to the road where I saw a large black beetle trying to make it across the dirt. I wished it luck - I have seen some roadkill that day already.
To the east things looked a bit different. There were lots of flowers there alright, but not the vast carpets that I saw west of the road. Low, chalk-like hills rose before the Tremblor Mountains and I decided to walk over there and see what I could find.
There wasn't any trail to speak of but there seemed to be numerous paths through the bushes and I figured that there would be a creek below the low hills, so I could make my way over there without disturbing the vegetation.
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| My walk as captured by my GPS |
Right away I saw one of the most interesting plants in that area - the black-hair lockweed, or milkvetch. The field I walked through had many of those milkvetch bushes, many of them were at peak bloom.
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| Black-hair Milkvetch, Astragalus lentiginosus var. nigricalycis |
I didn't see much wildlife activity around except for a few birds. There were plenty of evidence for wildlife activity though. Burrows with fresh paw prints were numerous .
The birds that I saw active around me were not easy to photograph. They were small, hyperactive, and kept their distance from me. I did manage to capture one lark sparrow as it perched atop one of the bushes.
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| Lark Sparrow |
Ahead of me was the slope of the low white hill. The hill was white only where the soil was exposed - the lower slopes were all colored with beautiful spring bloom. I made my cay carefully through a thicket of thigh-high shrubbery, most of which were fiddleneck plants.
The fiddleneck were blooming but not have not yet reached their peak. When these vast fields of fdiddleneck reach their peak bloom, their lovely orange is so intense it is visible from space. The fiddleneck field was so thick that little else could grow between them. here and there however, I did see some other plants that managed to break the orange stronghold.
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| Common Hillside Daisy, Monolopia lanceolata |
In that field there other plants in bloom too. One such plant was the white fiesta flower that grew in bush-like clusters in between the fiddleneck.
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| White Fiesta Flower, Pholistoma membranaceum |
At the edge of the fiddleneck field I could see that the blooming carpets covered both sides of the little creek below that hill. There were various shades of cream, yellow and light orange. Of course, there was lots of green too, which is a fleeting sight in this place where winter and spring are so short, and don't even occur every year.
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| Nameless Creek |
I walked along the edge of the creek, looking for a convenient place to step down. There were lots of creamcups flowers everywhere, in small clusters and also in large patches and mats.
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| Creamcups, Platystemon californicus |
I looked west in the direction of Elkhorn Road, to where the creek was meeting the road. Alternating patches of the hillside daisies and the creamcups seemed to be 'flowing' downstream in a beautiful palette.
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| View west |
I looked east and saw that the color flow continued all the way to the Tremblor Mountains, including patches of intense orange and a bit of purple too.
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| View east |
I wanted to explore some more so I stepped into the dry creek and resumed walking upstream. Now that I was on the gravel of the creek bed, I needn't be as careful to not trample anything.
Understandingly, most of the bloom was outside of the creek. The banks were fairly low and I had a great point of view of the colorful rims of the blooming creek banks.
Whenever the creek banks rose higher I was treated to the sight of flowers glowing in the sunshine above me.
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| Common Hillside Daisy, Monolopia lanceolata |
A few steps up the creek I got closer to the purple flowers that I saw earlier from a distance. These were the lacy phacelia that I've seen already on my first walk that day, and also in places along Elkhorn Road. In previous superbloom years these phacelias created huge carpets throughout Carrizo Plain, but this year there seemed to be fewer of them and the plain was dominated by the yellow and orange flowering plants.
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| Lacy Phacelia, Phacelia tanacetifolia |
Here too, the orange came from the fiddleneck flowers. There were many fiddleneck even inside the creek. It seemed to me that there were more than one fiddleneck species in that area, but I didn't have the knowledge to tell which ones.
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| Green Fiddleneck, Amsinckia vernicosa |
Flowers weren't the only source of orange color in that nameless creek. Some of the exposed rocks had a bright orange surface. The color could be a sort of weathering patina, since it doesn't seem to be the color of the rock itself.
Just outside the creek the vegetation was pretty green and I could see little flowers that were almost at my eye level, me being inside the creek. Among these little flowers were the already familiar and quite common red maids.
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| Red Maids, Calandrinia menziesii |
It was a lovely day, warm and bright. I walked slowly, breathing in the gorgeous spring that surrounded me and every minute or so letting out a huge sneeze because I forgot to pack my allergy medicine.
Moving up the dry creek was easy and nice. The narrow creek didn't really present any significant obstacles. I decided to follow it as far east as I could.
While there were no plants growing right at the creek bed, many were growing on its crumbling banks. I spotted a few lupines in one place, most of them were just beginning to bloom.
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| Chick Lupine, Lupinus microcarpus |
There were also a few chia plants in bloom on the sides of the creek. Chia plants are of the sage genus. This little unassuming plant with its delicate blue blossom has become a hyped nutritional supplement. It had been traditionally used by the native Californians who lived in the area.
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| Chia, Salvia columbariae |
The creek narrowed. I wasn't all that surprised to see that this narrow, partially shaded section was muddy - the moisture retained from the rains that came down there recently.
I climbed over the creek bank to bypass the mud. It was only that narrow part of the creek that was muddy. around the curve the creek bed was dry again.
On I went up the creek and soon I was flanked by large, thin-stemmed bushes that grew on both sides of the creek.
These bushes, the California Jointfir, were also in bloom -their flowers tiny and not very attractive, but numerous.
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| California Jointfir, Ephedra californica |
There were more fiddleneck flowers up the creek. These fiddleneck plants were of another species, another I had to identify using the iNaturalist App.
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| Bristly Fiddleneck, Amsinckia tessellata |
Then I came upon some flowers that I've seen earlier that day. Those I've seen earlier however, were still closed while these were more open. They were of a linanthus species that was new to me. It is a species that grows mainly in central-west California and its highest occurrence is in Carrizo Plain.
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| Evening Snow, Linanthus dichotomus ssp. dichotomus |
The creek continued on eastward and I checked my watch. I wanted to follow the creek more but I figured out that I still had to complete the drive on Elkhorn Road and then I had a four hours drive back home. After some internal dilemma I decided to exit the creek and head back to my car through the alluvial fan field.
The tall vegetation between me and Elkhorn Road comprised of large fiddleneck clusters, although there were plenty of other shrubs as well. There was enough of a wide passage between the plants and I treaded carefully and lightly.
I found a mustard -like plant that was blooming between the fiddleneck. It was a California mustard - a native species.
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| California Mustard, Caulanthus lasiophyllus |
In between the fiddleneck and the other shrubs were also mats of purple owl's clover. I enjoyed very much seeing them here as well, and there were many of them.
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| Purple Owl's Clover, Castileja exserta var. excerta |
There was also another species of owl's clover blooming in that alluvial field. These were thinner and lighter than their purple relative, more of a lilac color.
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| Short-styled Owl's Clover, Castilleja brevistyla |
As I got closer to Elkhorn Road I stopped again by the black-hair milkvetch shrubs that I saw earlier. THis species is also one that is found mainly in this region, and I liked seeing it at peak bloom.
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| Black-hair Milkvetch, Astragalus lentiginosus var. nigricalycis |
The milkvertch blossom is very beautiful but its freckled pods are even more gorgeous - they look like rare gems.
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| Black-hair Milkvetch, Astragalus lentiginosus var. nigricalycis |
When I reached my car I turned around and looked once more at those low, flower-covered chalk hills. I wished I had more time to explore them, but now it was time to resume my drive.
