Carrizo Plains National Monument - East
In 2020, a good friend of mine moved back to the Bay Area from the East Coast. I really wanted to go camping with him, so I invited him to this Carrizo Plains trip, and he agreed.
The drive down to Carrizo was uneventful, as far as I can remember. We encountered almost no traffic and got to Carrizo after about 4 hours on highways 101 and 58.
Our first stop was at Soda Lake. The seasonal lake was drier than I had found it last year and we were able to walk on it. We both tasted a bit of the salt flats and it tasted like… salt.
Instead of camping in established campsites in Carrizo (Selby or KCL), we wanted a dispersed camping experience, so we headed on Simmler Road to the east part of Carrizo.
We stopped at the few spots that I had marked down on my map as possible campsites, but they were either not as good as it seemed, or the trail to the site was closed off to motor vehicles. We ended up settling for a spot next to a side road within BLM boundaries.
We setup our respective tents, had a great dinner, then proceeded to watch the stars while taking photos and chatting about nothing and everything.
The next morning, we packed up and started driving south, to see a couple of places before camping on the west side of Carrizo.
What I Learned:
Gene is one of the best partners I’ve found for traveling with. Here are some reasons why:
He cooks and packs food that I really enjoy eating.
He doesn’t care what I play in the car. If he likes the songs/podcasts, he’ll listen. If he doesn’t, he just puts on headphones and listens to his own stuff.
He doesn’t get in the way of activities. For example, if he’s tired, he’ll take a nap while I hike or look at landmarks. And when I’m ready to roll, he’s good to go.
Carrizo was much drier than last year. Last year, Simmler Road was completely closed because of how wet the sticky mud was. This year, the road was so firm that could be driven by a Corolla.
I need to carry my larger tripod for astro-photography. About 60% of my shots were ruined due to the small tripod shaking due to the wind.
I really should paint the foreground subjects during astro-photography. I thought the silhouette would look cooler, but I was wrong.
Camp Review:
This spot wasn’t the greatest spot—because due to the lack of large vegetation or hills, it was quite windy.
Unlike previous years, many of the possible camping spots near Elkhorn Road were closed off.
Most of the currently available dispersed camping spots are in places that are very much exposed.
Still, besides wind, we liked this camp site. It’s Carrizo, so even though we were next to a major road like Elkhorn, I think we saw two cars the whole time we camped at this spot.