SAN ANDREAS FAULT TRIP, 1988 - THE CARRIZO PLAINS

It was 1988 when I was 32 years old.  After some changes I was going through in life, a breakup and a loss of a business and income, I decided to take a trip.  That morning that I was going to leave for Northern California – from Chatsworth, California – I started driving up the Interstate 5 (I still say “the” before the word Interstate – a California ‘thing’).

At Castaic Junction I turned off, being early in the morning – still dark out I drove west on US Hwy 126 towards Ventura, CA.  When I reached Santa Paula, I turned north on CA 150 towards  Ojai and then north again on CA 33 up over the Santa Ynez mountains north of Ojai towards Ventucopa, California.

After a right turn on CA 166 I turned left again on Soda Lake Road.  Somewhat paved, then turning to dirt most of the way.  This road would lead to the Carrizo Plains, now the Carrizo Plains National Monument.  The road I would go up would lead me right up (north) the famed San Andreas Fault.  I would follow many roads that would ride right along the San Andreas up to San Francisco and then follow the Fault north of San Francisco.

As far as photography, my medium at the time was 35mm slides.  This was almost 20 years before the digital cameras could be introduced to the public. Because some of these slides have faded a bit over the years, when I tell this tale in my  blog I will include some current pictures of some of the places I passed through.

With the Carrizo to my left and the Temblor Range to my right – I would drive along one of the most photographed gashes resulting from a major earthquake fault or a rift between the Pacific Tectonic Plate and the North American Tectonic Plate.  The Pacific Plate is moving northwest in relation to the southeast grind of the North American Plate.

I have included some images of the Carrizo Plains NM including the famed Wallace Creek offset which has been measured to about 3,000 years of sudden movement along the San Andreas.

At this point I will continue later as I am covering the Carrizo Plains segment from CA 166 to CA 58, or the Carrisa Highway that transverses from McKittrick, CA to Santa Margarita, CA just north of San Luis Obispo.