We went up to see the flowers and all. We were not disappointed, it was beautiful. The main road is paved and graded dirt, a Toyota Tc could do them, but some of the side trails in both mountain ranges are a little more than a car should do (or large van) but still very easy. It does make for a bit too many “tourists” this time of year but you can escape them.
The animals all seem to know that the tourists are there and annoying, so they leave the plain. We did as did they and we camped up in the hills, I will not say exactly where (mine all mine I say), but we were surrounded by flowers and had a great view into the plain, whilst having no one near by to annoy us. In fact most folks seems to be in the two campgrounds at night, miles and miles from where we were. Late in the night I awoke to hear something large moving about near my tent, likely it was happy not to smell tourist on me! I went to sleep and in the morning there were tracks of all sorts of critters in the nearby wash, a freeway for them!
All in all is was a great trip. No real wheeling, but some good short hikes and plenty of wonderful views!!!
The flowers might have a week or two or three at most left at full bloom.
I know the Carrizo Plain was discussed in a Net a while back so my pictures are here:
http://www.tacodawg.net/images/Trips/20 ... index.html
Other adventures here: http://www.tacodawg.net/trips.htm
