Without the Roar

Wow, I've never had a tweet go viral before.

This photo I tweeted got over 18,000 views, hundreds of likes,
and over a hundred retweets. In two days!

I'm not sure what to say... except thank you. And follow me live next weekend on Twitter as I climb Mt. Shasta--just kidding. My favorite comment: "this looks like my lawn during baseball season."

Carrizo Plain Photos

Soda Lake, April 14, 2017

Looking southeast toward snowcapped Mt. Pinos
from Soda Lake Overlook, April 14, 2017

Meadowlark, Goldfields, and Tidy Tips, March 30, 2006.

California Poppies, March 31, 2006

March 31, 2006

Long-billed Curlews, March 31, 2006

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Central Valley Grassland and the Carrizo Plain

In April 2017 we were on our way to Carrizo Plain National Monument, and we stayed a night in Taft at a relatively new Best Western with toilets that were too full and lights that were excessively bright. Views of the starry sky would have to wait for a camping trip at another time. The view of Buena Vista Lake full of water was very gratifying, however.

It is so nice to see terminal lakes filling up. Our watersheds are so heavily developed that the only water that makes it past our dams usually is that which is required by law. But in a year like 2017 there is too much to take, and terminal lakes on both sides of the Sierra start filling up: the Walker River flows to Walker Lake, the Owens River flows to Owens Lake, the Kern River flows to Buena Vista Lake, the Kings River flows to Tulare Lake. Just to name a few. What was once typical is now extraordinary.

I first saw the Carrizo Plain in March 1993 from the top of Caliente Ridge. A dayhike from Cuyama Valley to the highest mountain in San Luis Obispo County was exhausting (30 miles) but revealing--I looked down to the north on a valley filled with colors. Vast blooms of yellow, orange, and purple flowers filled the San Andreas Rift Zone in that wet year following record drought.

I wrote the following essay and published it on my former Website between 2001 and 2005. I reprint it here in my "Best of" category.

There's something about a grassland. The sound of the wind in the grass, the wide open horizons, the spring wildflowers, and one of the most beautiful songs in the world: Western Meadowlarks. The Carrizo Plain is my other favorite place in the world, for these reasons primarily. It sits in a high valley between the Temblor Range and where the Transverse Ranges transition to the Coast Ranges, out of the way of modern "progress," more accurately modern destruction (although it used to have more farms, since abandoned). Since it hasn't been destroyed, but most of the Great Central Valley has, it is the best example of what the Central Valley uplands probably used to be like. Also, not a coincidence, it harbors one of the greatest concentrations of endangered species in California. I think I saw a California Condor there once, and I definitely saw San Joaquin Kit Foxes.