Death Valley is not the only California landscape carpeted with flowers.
One-hundred and fifty miles to the west, at Carrizo Plain National Monument, located off Highway 58 between San Luis Obispo and Bakersfield, the hills are blossoming with vibrant yellow daisies, fiddlenecks and California poppies, visitors say. The Bureau of Land Management calls it “one of the best kept secrets in California.”
Between 50,000 to 60,000 visitors make their way to the national monument every year, according to the BLM — far less than the more than 1.1 million people who visited Death Valley in 2021. But visitation is higher during good wildflower years; in March 2023, the area’s most recent superbloom, more than 120,000 visitors came to witness flowers paint the Temblor Range in yellow, orange and purple.
This year doesn’t appear likely to rise to the level of a superbloom, said Aaron Adams, who lives just outside the monument’s entrance. But even though it’s more of an average year, there’s still plenty to enjoy…