The Reserve
The intense blooming season for the California poppy falls usually within late winter to early spring, during the months of mid-February through mid-May. Blooming seasons are dependent on the amount of rainfall during the winter to early spring seasons. Within the reserve, there are 7 miles (11 km) of trails, including a paved section for wheelchair access, which traverse through the poppy fields.
In order to keep the fields in a strictly natural state, California State Parks does not water or stimulate the flowers. The park service also excludes sheep and cattle from grazing the hillsides. Until the early 1970s sheep once grazed the buttes in the western Antelope Valley. Pronghorn grazed long before then, until the railroad first arrived in 1876. With the exception of service dogs, pets are prohibited from the reserve. Under California state law, visitors are also prohibited from taking flowers away from the reserve.
Since 1994, controlled fires are used to regulate dead brush, exotic species and litter within the reserve.
The reserve is located 7 miles (11 km) east of Arthur B. Ripley Desert Woodland State Park.
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Entrance to the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve
Read more about this topic: Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve
Famous quotes containing the word reserve:
“I do not know what right I have to so much happiness, but rather hold it in reserve till the time of my desert.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In a democracy—even if it is a so-called democracy like our white-élitist one—the greatest veneration one can show the rule of law is to keep a watch on it, and to reserve the right to judge unjust laws and the subversion of the function of the law by the power of the state. That vigilance is the most important proof of respect for the law.”
—Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)