Last week I wrote about our visit to Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve and the hordes of people flocking to the park. We planned to visit Carrizo Plains National Monument later in the day and spend the night camping in the hills above the valley. I was apprehensive about finding mobs of visitors also in the monument, so I decided to enter Carrizo Plain through the backdoor where we would have the greatest chance of isolation. We left the Poppy Reserve and drove towards the intersection of I-5 at Gorman. There were a few splashes of color in the Gorman area and over the Tejon Pass, but nothing that seemed worthy of further exploration. We left I-5 when it intersected with CA166 and drove west.
Phacelia and Hillside Daisy along the Elkhorn Grade Road. I gave up early at making focus stacks of moving flower heads. In this image I settled for a shallow depth of field to draw focus to the Phacelia.
My family moved to Santa Maria, California in the mid 1960’s. Through my adolescence and teen years, we ventured regularly to Mammoth Mountain, first to ski, and then to take up summer sports. We drove the Maricopa Highway (166) hundreds of times. Through all those years, I never knew the incredible beauty that existed just a few miles off the turnoff at Soda Lake. The sign for Soda Lake never drew us in, if it even existed in those days. It pains me to think of all those lost springs that I could have witnessed massive flower blooms that covered the hills every year. Those experiences were owned solely by a handful of ranchers scratching out their existence in an arid landscape. It’s only been in the last 6-7 years that I have been aware of this area.
Tidy Tips and Goldfields along the boardwalk at Soda Lake early in the morning.
Just beyond the city limits of Maricopa, there is a turnoff onto a dirt road signed the Elkhorn Grade. This is the back entrance to Carrizo Plain. It’s a steep climb over the Temblor Mountains and traverses the length of the Carrizo Valley on the other side. On our drive, we only encountered a handful of other visitors, so we mostly had expansive views to ourselves. On other visits, the skies were clear and uninteresting. This day however the sky was full of puffy storm clouds that added further interest and drama to the landscape and wildflowers.
This image was made on the eastern side of the valley. It is an HDR image made from three exposures. The foreground was easy to capture, but I had a more difficult time holding back the intensity of the backlit clouds.
We spent the afternoon shooting along the valley. On this trip I practiced building panoramic images, focus stacks, and high-dynamic range images. Because we still had wind to contend with, the focus stacks of wildflowers were difficult to create. Moving wildflowers don’t work well in focus stacking, and also makes it difficult for panoramic images. I’ll indicate the various techniques I used in the captions of the photos I use in this post.
Sunset from our camping location on the west side of the valley, above Soda Lake. Yellow Fiddleneck in the foreground compliment the glowing clouds above the lake.
We didn’t bring the Scamp on this trip because we intended to stay with a friend in Arroyo Grande (thanks Cindy). But we did want to stay overnight in Carrizo Plain in order to photograph both sunset and sunrise. Without the Scamp, we slept in the back of the 4Runner and enjoyed a quiet night’s rest. Sunset was lovely but sunrise didn’t happen. We had a heavy cloud cover in the morning. It’s not uncommon for that part of California to be covered in morning fog. We didn’t exactly have fog and the cloud deck wasn’t very high. It allowed me to make beautiful images along the shore of Soda Lake that brought out the brilliant intensity of the flowers growing along the shoreline. I fell in love with Carrizo Plain the first time I visited several years ago, and I remain captivated by it today. I’ve only visited there in the beauty of the spring bloom. Sometime I should return in the off season, likely a more desolate experience.
Low clouds blocked any chance of capturing sunrise the next morning. With no regrets, I embraced the drama the clouds offered. The muted light still allowed the flowers to glow brilliantly and contrast beautifully with the cool tones of the sky and distant Temblor Mountains.
Almost 180° viewing angle from the previous image, this view of Goldfields and Tidy Tips carpet the valley floor along Soda Lake.