Largest single native grassland remaining in California

How to Get There

From San Luis Obispo, CA (76 mi): Take US-101 N to CA-58 E, then follow Soda Lake Road south into Carrizo Plain National Monument.

Overview

The Carrizo Plain is a large enclosed grassland plain, approximately 50 miles (80 km) long and up to 15 miles (24 km) across, in southeastern San Luis Obispo County, California, about 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Los Angeles. It contains the 246,812-acre (99,881 ha) Carrizo Plain National Monument, and it is the largest single native grassland remaining in California. It includes Painted Rock in the Carrizo Plain Rock Art Discontiguous District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2012 it was further designated a National Historic Landmark due to its archeological value. The San Andreas Fault occurs along the eastern edge of the Carrizo Plain at the western base of the Temblor Range.

Geography and geology

The Carrizo Plain extends northwest from the town of Maricopa, following the San Andreas Fault. Bordering the plain to the northeast is the Temblor Range, on the other side of which is California's Central Valley. Bordering the plain to the southwest is the Caliente Range. The community of California Valley is in the northern part of the plain. The average elevation of the plain is about 2,200 feet (670.6 m). Soda Lake, a 3,000-acre (12 km2) alkaline lake, is in the center of the plain with the popular Painted Rock containing Chumash and Yokuts rock art nearby. As the central depression in an enclosed basin, Soda Lake receives all of the runoff from both sides of the plain. At 5,106 feet (1,556 m), Caliente Mountain, southwest of the plain, stands as the highest point in San Luis Obispo County.

The Carrizo Plain is an easily accessible place to see surface fractures of the San Andreas Fault; they are clearly visible along the eastern side of the plain, at the foot of the Temblor Range. They are best seen in early morning and evening light, when shadows enhance the topography. In addition to its spring wildflower displays, Carrizo Plain is also famous for Painted Rock, a sandstone alcove adorned with pictographs created by the Chumash people around 2000 BC.

Wallace Creek

Wallace Creek is a small stream, draining into Soda Lake, that remains dry most of the year. It drains perpendicular to the San Andreas Fault, and the creek bed is currently offset by 425 ft (130 m) due to the movement of the fault. About 23 ft (7 m) of the displacement was created during the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake. The current segment began forming 3,700 years ago. Sometime between 1540 and 1630 A.D., the creek was offset by about 40.6 feet (12.4 m) feet in an even larger earthquake.

Two other older creek beds lie 1,560 and 1,310 ft (475 and 399 m) northwest along the San Andreas Fault. The first creek bed was created around 13,000 years ago when climate change formed the creek on a large active alluvial fan. The second bed was created about 11,000 years ago.

The creek has been carefully studied by geologists to find a correlation between the offset and historical events, such as earthquakes, that have occurred along the San Andreas Fault. Although Wallace Creek is not the only creek that has been offset by the San Andreas Fault, it is the most spectacular.

Access

State Route 166 passes the south entrance to the Carrizo Plain, and State Route 58 crosses through the northern portion. Connecting them is the narrow Soda Lake Road, the only dependably passable road through the plain—but even this may become impassable during or soon after a rain since the middle portion of it is gravel.

Campgrounds

Camping within Carrizo Plain National Monument is available at two primitive campgrounds - KCL Campground and Selby Campground. These two sites differ markedly.

KCL is located in the southern part of the monument, west and very close to Soda Lake Road. Access from the main road is easy, and the camping area is generally bounded by a wooden fence. The campground has eight picnic tables and firepits, and is frequently occupied by "day use" visitors, although overnight camping is also allowed. Trees about the campground provide shade - some of the only shade in the monument's valley.

Selby is located more to the north and more distant from Soda Lake Road. A good gravel road leads to the campground from Soda Lake Road over a distance of five miles. The road is generally usable in all weather conditions, but does wind and have some moderate grades as it approaches the campground area. This site is much more rugged, located on a man-made cut into the natural terrain, bounded by hills and canyons.

Painted Rock

Painted Rock is a smooth horseshoe-shaped marine sandstone rock formation with pictograph rock art about 250 feet across and 45 feet tall near Soda Lake within the Carrizo Plain National Monument on the southwest side of the northern Carrizo Plain, west of Bakersfield and about 70 miles (110 km) east of San Luis Obispo and 45 miles (72 km) west of Taft, in California, United States.

History

The interior of the rock alcove is adorned with many pictographs created by the Chumash, Salinan and Yokuts peoples over many thousands of years. In recent times there have been many marks left by early White settlers such as one reading "Geo. Lewis 1908", founder of Atascadero, California.

Ancient rock art in red, black and white yucca pigments, and some yellow, green and blue were painted with rodent tail hair brushes or simple finger painting. Estimates are that the Chumash people first populated the Carrizo Plain about 2000 BCE but mostly abandoned it, possibly due to drought, about CE 600.

The Yokuts people common in the nearby San Joaquin Valley moved in and out of the Carrizo Plain area after the Chumash departed, creating their own rock art. Yokut pictographs often include large colorful figures and motifs, while the Chumash pictographs tend toward small elements, circular mandalas, and complex red, black and white panels.

Access

Painted Rock can be reached by footpath from the Goodwin Center off Soda Lake Road, which runs northwest-southeast between State Route 166 and State Route 58. Like most roads within Carrizo Plain, it is unpaved and subject to sudden closure during and after rainy weather. Note that Painted Rock is a protected area and regularly closed to the public between March 1 and the end of May except for guided tours.

Goodwin Center and Museum

During limited business hours, visitor services for the area are provided by the Goodwin Education Center during the months of December through May. In addition to some Painted Rock tours and details, it also provides information and displays regarding threatened and endangered Carrizo Plain wildlife species. These include the San Joaquin kit fox, the blunt-nosed leopard lizard, the giant kangaroo rat, and the San Joaquin antelope squirrel.

There is also information and history regarding settlement and farming of the area. Outside the new museum are antique farm equipment and machinery on display, along with picnic areas and walking trails.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Carrizo Plain", and "Painted Rock (San Luis Obispo County, California) ", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.