Seas of orange poppies and deep blue lupines give way to corridors of yellow mustard flowers every spring in this famous wildflower terrain. Bloom time generally spans from March through April – but since each variety only blooms for a week or 2, luck definitely plays a part in your experience. In early April, we missed the poppies and caught the beginning of the mustard flowers. But regardless of when you go, lovely pastures roll on and on into the distance and on parts of the Bane Ridge Trail, you’ll feel like you’re walking in the footsteps of the Van Trapp family.
Many trails interconnect throughout the park and you can combine them into loops of various lengths. At the park entrance, the ranger who takes your $10 entrance fee will provide you with a park map, recommendations and even offered us water. We followed her advice and explored Bane Ridge Trail in search of flowers. It takes a few steeper ascents to best the Bane Ridge Trail, but none the over-80-year-old among us couldn’t handle. Aliso Canyon Trail has a particularly picturesque start marked by a vintage windmill not far from the Rolling M Ranch campground.
