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.
Soda Lake sits in the lowest spot in the valley, swelling with the winter rains and
shrinking with the summer heat. Lesser Sandhill Cranes overwinter here, venturing during
the day to grain fields near and far.
During 1998 it didn't dry up, the first time in a
long time according to one long-time local. During the spring of 1995 the abundant
rainfall engorged it enough to make it the largest lake in San Luis Obispo County--for a
couple of months.
The first time I laid my eyes on the Carrizo Plain was in March of 1993, on a dayhike up Caliente Mountain from the Cuyama Valley. As I hiked along the ridge, I looked north and saw beautiful carpets of wildflowers coloring the valley floor impossible blues and oranges amidst the green grass. It was a magical moment, and a glimpse at what we've lost in California's Great Central Valley.
John Muir was impressed by the grasslands of the Central Valley and Coast Ranges when
he first crossed them, even after almost 100 years of colonial degradation:
"The last of the Coast Range foothills were in near view all the way to Gilroy. Their union with the valley is by curves and slopes of inimitable beauty. They were robed with the greenest grass and richest light I ever beheld, and were coloured and shaded with myriads of flowers of every hue, chiefly of purple and golden yellow. Hundreds of crystal rills joined song with the larks, filling all the valley with music like a sea, making it Eden from end to end.
...When at last, stricken and faint like a crushed insect, you hope to escape from all the terrible grandeur of these mountain powers, other fountains, other oceans break forth before you; for there, in clear view, over heaps and rows of foothills, is laid a grand, smooth, outspread plain, watered by a river, and another range of peaky, snow-capped mountains a hundred miles in the distance. That plain is the valley of the San Joaquin, and those mountains are the great Sierra Nevada. The valley of the San Joaquin is the floweriest piece of world I ever walked, one vast, level, even flower-bed, a sheet of flowers, a smooth sea, ruffled a little in the middle by the tree fringing of the river and of smaller cross-streams here and there, from the mountains.
Florida is indeed a 'land of flowers,' but for every flower creature that dwells in its most delightsome places more than a hundred are living here. Here, here is Florida! Here they are not sprinkled apart with grass between as on our prairies, but grasses are sprinkled among the flowers; not as in Cuba, flowers piled upon flowers, heaped and gathered into deep, glowing masses, but side by side, flower to flower, petal to petal, touching but not entwined, branches weaving past and past each other, yet free and separate--one smooth garment, mosses next the ground, grasses above, petalled flowers between."
A year later, in 1869, he observed:
"In the great Central Valley of California there are only two seasons--spring and summer. The spring begins with the first rain-storm, which usually falls in November. In a few months the wonderful flowery vegetation is in full bloom and by the end of May it is dead and dry and crisp, as if every plant had been roasted in an oven."
In 1844, John C. Fremont led an expedition through the Great Valley:
"On the third day out, they approached the wide and deep San Joaquin River. They noticed that the soil was not the same as that of the Sacramento Valley. It was much more sandy, and there was not as much vegetation. This sparseness did not include the whole San Joaquin Valley. They entered a region where flowering lupine gave the ground a bright blue color as though some frantic artist had smeared the earth with a giant brush. Beyond the thickets of lupine--some standing as much as twelve feet high--past the sweet aroma of the spiked flowers, there were great stands of live oaks. Then the color of the landscape changed to a rich orange as the men rode through acre after acre of California poppies.
Flowers and oaks were only part of the wild beauty of this valley. There were vast herds of wild horses and cattle, tule elk, pronghorn antelopes, and blacktail deer. Overhead there were flights of ducks and geese that passed like small storm clouds and momentarily shut out the sunlight. Instead of lightning and thunder, the waterfowl squawked, honked, and made a drumlike sound as thousands of flapping wings beat steadily against the wind.
...Wolf packs also roamed the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley. Along with the coyotes, these predators were always on the hunt for sick, weak, or young animals in the great herds of the grasslands. To Fremont and his men, the whole valley was almost unbelievable. ..." (quoted from Ferol Egan, 1985, Fremont: Explorer for a Restless Nation)
Almost all of this grandeur is now gone, replaced with sterile mechanized unsustainable
intensive agribusiness. Unfortunately, cities are also expanding, and hope for restoration
of this part of our heritage seems dim. In the works are things that give me hope though,
and as long as our environmental laws are enforced more and more and good people try to do
the right thing, I believe that someday the ecosystem of California's Central Valley will
be healthier--and hopefully have a hint of wildness that is essential to maintaining both
ecosystem function and human spirit. Until then, I will visit the Carrizo Plain to
engorge my life with a taste of the richness John Muir so poetically described.
The Carrizo Plain Natural Area is now one of Clinton's new National Monuments. My only requests are: don't pave anything that isn't already paved; and don't take any actions that would preclude restoring the entire assemblage of native plants and animals to the area. In fact, spend any additional money special designations bring ONLY on eliminating non-native species, reintroducing fire, and restoration and resource protection. Click here to get involved in the planning process.
Click here for more grassland photos.
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Copyright © 1998-2008
Gregory J. Reis
