My Havasu backpacking buddy (and great photographer) Andrew just dropped me a line to let me know the Santa Monica Mountains are smack dab in the middle of a great wildflower bloom right now. With the recent rainstorm and some partly sunny forecasts — for the weekend afternoons, at least — this would be a good time to head out to Malibu and do a little hiking before the summer sun makes the trails too hot.
He recommends the La Jolla Valley Loop for good peeping, and I agree. I did the trail a few years ago — before I started GPS tracking — and was really impressed with the variety of landscapes on this route. You get some great coastal bluffs, a hidden lake, a (very small) waterfall, and one of Southern California’s last-remaining native grasslands.
The Park Service has a page of bloom reports, and it looks like Triufno Canyon and Point Mugu have some nice flower cover right now, too. For added fun, identify all the flowers when you get home. Your botanist friends will be impressed.
My doctor told me not to engage in “strenuous activities” for a few weeks … but a walk through the flowers can’t be that bad, right?
Image by njhdiver
