Epic Travel → North America → The West Coast → Southern California → Los Angeles Area → Walker Canyon

Location: Lake Elsinore Area, Southeast of Los Angeles

Time Required: 3 hours

Red Tape/Notes: Poppies bloom in the spring (around March) and are best viewed around midday on a sunny day when they’ll be fully open.

What’s Nearby?: Santa Rosa Plateau

This is probably a pleasant stroll anytime in the spring – I’m sure you can find lovely wildflowers here that time of year, but the thing that makes this place truly excellent is the explosion of California poppies that happens over a brief period of time on lucky years. If you catch this area when there’s a particularly good bloom happening, it’s absolutely magical. I could barely tear myself away from the canyon during the 2017 Superbloom. Like most places, there will probably be a terrible hoard of people on the easy to access sections, but the farther in you hike, the more people you’ll lose and you can eventually get to some relative solitude if you hike far enough.

Epic Travel → North America → The West Coast → Southern California → Los Angeles Area → Walker Canyon