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Dispatch #10 - Carrizo Plain National Monument - Part 2

Dispatch #10 - Carrizo Plain National Monument - Part 2

Can We Talk About the Superbloom? A Journey In Photographs.

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Josh Jackson
May 18, 2025
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Forgotten Lands Project
Forgotten Lands Project
Dispatch #10 - Carrizo Plain National Monument - Part 2
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Good morning from Los Angeles. It’s 5:11am, coffee in hand. The birds are doing their best to will the sun up from the east, singing and chirping in a disjointed chorus.

From my living room window: a young avocado tree, planted by our neighbors when their child was born during the height of the pandemic. Across the street, the gnarled and twisted roots of a carrotwood tree, the hummingbirds' favorite haunt. Behind that, floodlights stretch skyward, illuminating the high school track and field that fills a whole city block. In the distance, the canopy of deodar cedars, the hill that separates our valley from the next one, more hills, and then finally, the mile-high crest of the San Gabriel Mountains standing tall over Pasadena.

One silhouette stacked atop another — homes, streets, trees, lights, and ridgelines layered across the horizon. I sometimes sit on the porch and try to imagine what this view once held for the Gabrielino-Tongva people, before Spanish colonization, disease, livestock, and invasive species led to the near-extirpation of their communities and the ecosystems they stewarded.

I imagine the view in spring — with native grasslands, coastal sage scrub, and groves of oak and sycamore brimming with color. Old postcards of these valleys and plains show fields of lupines and poppies.

In the spring of 1847, a soldier stationed not far from where I live witnessed a wildflower bloom so vivid it defied comparison:

“In the plain itself, the richest and most brilliant wildflowers flourish which far transcends all art. All colors, all shades of colors, all hues, all tints, all combinations are there to be seen. And the endless variety bewilder the senses. Perennial incense ascends to heaven from these fragrant plains.” - J. W. Revere in A Tour of Duty in California.

His words offer a rare glimpse into the original vibrancy of a landscape now largely paved over.

But a hundred miles northwest of this valley lies another — Carrizo Plain — a place that still offers a glimpse of what these hills once looked like, before we lost them to sprawl.

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