Ode to Carrizo Plain

Heading west into the Caliente Mountains, I held no expectations for what lay ahead. For miles, grassy green rolling hills loomed in front of me. Dense stocks of fiddleneck raked against my legs, and dew drops clung to each purple bush lupine. Anticipation mounted while ascending each peak. What would I see in a wilderness that possesses more endangered species than any one place in California?

The last hill offered wide-open views of the vast Carrizo Plain National Monument. Below me, two dots moved slowly across the sweeping grasslands, a pair of pronghorn antelope bulls browsed the valley floor. Would they reach the jagged scar that’s the San Andreas Fault at the base of the Temblor Mountains to the east? Something told me they’d have their fill before that and bed down in the middle of California’s Serengeti.

What happens when where you are converges with where you want to be? That question is answered every time I hang a left off Highway 166 onto Soda Lake Road, and I’m swallowed up in the silence of this remote wilderness. The national monument turned 10 years old in April, the last of California’s historic grasslands clinging to the protection set forth by former president Bill Clinton, who deemed the region a national monument in 2001. “It’s a unique, beautiful area,” said Johna Hurl, resource manager of the Carrizo Plain. “It’s a place where you can go without seeing or hearing anyone.”