Carrizo Plain Super Bloom 2026 - I Wasn't Ready for This!

The Carrizo Plain is one of California's most remote landscapes, but during the right spring, it transforms into one of the most spectacular wildflower displays in the entire American West. Welcome to Fiesta Adventures. Today we're exploring the Carrizo Plain National Monument during a spectacular wildflower bloom. Our first stop is the Soda Lake Overlook and Boardwalk. Soda Lake is a shallow alkaline basin that fills during winter rains and slowly evaporates during the spring. Even when the water disappears, the salt flats remain, giving the valley its stark and beautiful character. Nearby Selby Campground provides access to hiking trails and some of the first wildflower fields we encountered in the monument. The Carrizo Plain super bloom is famous for goldfields, bacillia, desert dandelion, tidy tips, fiddle neck, owls, clover, poppies, and a few others, which can blanket entire hillsides when the rainfall conditions are right. The next morning, we continued south through the monument. Our first stop was Traver Ranch, once the center of early ranching in the remote valley. Now you can walk around the ranch and check out the old equipment with the beautiful Soda Lake Valley as a backdrop. From here, we climbed toward the hills along Elkhorn Road. The view from the pass revealed how massive the bloom really was. We stopped here to enjoy our late breakfast on a little side road, and the views were just amazing. We found a quiet spot overlooking the valley where the wildflowers stretched for miles in every direction. Leaving Soda Lake Road and heading over the pass on Elkhorn Road was a real treat. The road became much smaller, and keep in mind if it's wet, you definitely don't want to do this road. While high clearance isn't necessarily required, it is recommended to have at least a medium clearance vehicle such as a SUV. Probably not the best road for a Prius or Civic. We came across large fields of purple flowers that was just gorgeous. One of the surprises of the day was discovering a narrow two-track road where flowers were growing right down the center. Driving through this felt like floating across a sea of wildflowers. As we continued north on Elkhorn Road, we came upon this old ranch with new and old water tanks. There was also an old cattle loading ramp with tumbleweeds rolled up against it, and of course the backdrop was hills with beautiful yellow flowers. As we continue north on Elkhorn Road, the flowers subside somewhat, but the adventure is not over because we still have to cross Soda Lake on a piece of land that separates the various portions of the lake, and then we're going to head up the amazing Caliente Road to camp. If you find yourself traveling north on Elkhorn Road and would like to get back to Soda Lake Road, the best way to go is a road called Similar Road. The reason it's so cool, it crosses a landmass right next to the lake where all the salt flats are, and there are places where you can pull over and observe the salt flats. It's really gorgeous here and it was a real treat that we didn't expect. You can actually walk out on the salt flats if you choose to do so, however be careful because they can be very soft to walk on. As you'll discover, it takes a whole day to explore Carrizo Plain, and even then you're missing out on a lot. But at the end of the day, we decided to head back toward our Selby Campground, but this time we're going to take the Caliente Ridge, which rises above the campground. You can look down at the campground and it affords amazing views of the valley below as it climbs steeply up. It's not a road for the faint of heart, and while it's pretty smooth, it is recommended to have a medium clearance all-wheel drive and nerves of steel to drive this road. But we went up there and there are dispersed campsites along the road. You can camp anywhere as long as there's a pullout that's appropriate. We found an amazing site with views of Soda Lake, Selby Campground below, and the beautiful rock formation. We got up in the morning to watch the sunrise, set out our chairs, and enjoy the beautiful sunrise as we photograph some flowers. And it's highly recommended to visit this area in March or April when the flowers are blooming. Nice any time, but at this time of year it's particularly appealing. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Hope you enjoyed the video as much as I enjoyed making it. Give it a thumbs up and we'll see on the next one.