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Photos, Videos: Gorgeous Poppies Are Carpeting The Los Padres National Forest
Last month, LAist's resident mountain man Zach Behrens wrote about 10 off-the-radar spots around SoCal to check out the most wonderful bounty of spring: wildflowers. This weekend, he indicated Grass Mountain in the Los Padres National Forest is poppy-ing off. He writes:
This Wildflower Update from the Forest Service last week indicated that "Grass Mountain has not put on such a show in quite a few years" (and also has some good detailed notes on different routes, and what kinds of flowers you'll see where). But your time to witness this natural wonder
is limited, so you're going to want to get up there ASAP. Here's a map of the different trails leading up to and around Grass Mountain. To get there, it's a nearly 3-hour drive north from Los Angeles, but surely worth it.
I mean.....
A little preview of today's hike. As I got to the top, I overhead a mother hiking with her kids exclaim, "There is a God." Another local said she's lived here for 24 years and had only seen Grass Mountain like this once—24 years ago when she moved here. Five miles round trip, steep as hell, and utterly beautiful. Want to do this? Hurry up. Poppies appeared to be going to seed so this is probably peak. This is in Los Padres National Forest, but our route cut through private property with a free permit.
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And of course: there's got to be a drone video in the mix.
Just be wary if the poppies start to lull you to sleep as you're posing for an Instagram:
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If you're looking to do some flower-peeping a bit closer to home, try the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve in Lancaster, which is about an hour and a half away from LA—LAist's Jean Trinh checked it out this week.
What are you doing still looking at the computer! Go! (Or, if you're trapped behind a computer too, you can live vicariously through this poppy porn here.)
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