To the Carrizo Plain
It was early afternoon Saturday when we returned to the trailhead after hiking Mt. Pinos. We ate a bit of lunch from our cooler and got back in the car for the drive down the mountain and on toward Carrizo Plain National Monument.
Viewed from a statewide perspective, Mt. Pinos and Carrizo Plain are neighbors. Indeed, we could see parts of Carrizo from atop Mt. Pinos. Even by the winding roads it's only 40-ish miles from the peak's trailhead to the southern border of the monument. But the drive seemed to take much longer than the 75 minutes elapsed on the clock.
Part of the drive's apparent length was its solitude. Once we passed through some of the mountain exurb communities beneath Mt. Pinos we were basically alone. For at least half an hour on the road I don't think we passed a single car.
Don't get me wrong, solitude is often a good thing. We seek it out when we're in the great outdoors and savor it when we find it. But here, on the border of populous Southern California, it was shocking to experience. South of the mountains we were traversing sprawls a megalopolis of 17 million people. We'd have thought a few of them would've been out here with us on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
But no, we had the road to ourselves. And it was glorious. Coming down from Mt. Pinos we were descending most of the way, the road weaving along the serpentine contours of various ridges. The landscape changed around us as we dropped from near alpine climate, dominated by Ponderosa Pines, to near desert, covered with waving tan Cheat Grass dried out so much by the drought that tumbleweeds rolled across our path. With the aid of the solitude- it was just us and this ever expanding canvas of nature- it was like staring at an epic painting, looking at it closer and closer until we were in the painting, and then staring more closely still such that we descended deeper into it.
Partway through the descent I stopped for a picture of an unnamed canyon dropping off from the side of the road. It's part of the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge.
In this picture you can see some of the transition I described. At the top right is a higher mountain. It's dark because it's covered in fir trees. In the foreground are middle elevations, where a variety of small trees and scrub grow. At the top left is a low mountain the color of parched dirt. It's not actually covered with dirt, though. That's the golden hue of the dried grass and weed.
Continued in next entry.
Viewed from a statewide perspective, Mt. Pinos and Carrizo Plain are neighbors. Indeed, we could see parts of Carrizo from atop Mt. Pinos. Even by the winding roads it's only 40-ish miles from the peak's trailhead to the southern border of the monument. But the drive seemed to take much longer than the 75 minutes elapsed on the clock.
Part of the drive's apparent length was its solitude. Once we passed through some of the mountain exurb communities beneath Mt. Pinos we were basically alone. For at least half an hour on the road I don't think we passed a single car.
Don't get me wrong, solitude is often a good thing. We seek it out when we're in the great outdoors and savor it when we find it. But here, on the border of populous Southern California, it was shocking to experience. South of the mountains we were traversing sprawls a megalopolis of 17 million people. We'd have thought a few of them would've been out here with us on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
But no, we had the road to ourselves. And it was glorious. Coming down from Mt. Pinos we were descending most of the way, the road weaving along the serpentine contours of various ridges. The landscape changed around us as we dropped from near alpine climate, dominated by Ponderosa Pines, to near desert, covered with waving tan Cheat Grass dried out so much by the drought that tumbleweeds rolled across our path. With the aid of the solitude- it was just us and this ever expanding canvas of nature- it was like staring at an epic painting, looking at it closer and closer until we were in the painting, and then staring more closely still such that we descended deeper into it.
Partway through the descent I stopped for a picture of an unnamed canyon dropping off from the side of the road. It's part of the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge.
In this picture you can see some of the transition I described. At the top right is a higher mountain. It's dark because it's covered in fir trees. In the foreground are middle elevations, where a variety of small trees and scrub grow. At the top left is a low mountain the color of parched dirt. It's not actually covered with dirt, though. That's the golden hue of the dried grass and weed.
Continued in next entry.