Craig Romano
If you’ve ever wondered what the Southern California landscape looked like before 20 million people took up residence there, this is the place. The 9,000-acre Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve (SRPER) in southwestern Riverside County defies time. Situated in the Santa Ana Mountains just west of rapidly growing Murrieta and Temecula, the reserve consists of rare native bunchgrass prairie, wildlife-rich vernal pools, tenajas (natural cisterns) and savannas of endangered gnarled old-growth Englemann oaks. A trio of mesas in the reserve block any views of the settled valley below. Instead, distant lofty rugged peaks of the surrounding Peninsular Mountain Ranges come into sigh—the same views had by the Luiseño (Payómkawichum), the region’s first peoples.
Craig Romano
In 1846, Mexican governor Pio Pico granted 47,000 acres of the plateau to Los Angeleno Juan Moreno to be established as a ranch. Moreno built a small adobe for his vaqueros (cowboys), which still stands on the property, the oldest structure in Riverside County. In 1855 Moreno sold his holding now in the new state of California in the United States to Los Angeleno Augustine Machado. He built a much larger adobe next to the older structure. It still stands, and the two well-built adobes shaded by a massive 400-year-old oak near a rippling stream is now a popular hiking destination.
But for a century before hikers descended upon this ecologically rich plateau, the cattle ranch transferred between various owners and corporations. In the 1980s development loomed as Riverside County’s population boomed. The Nature Conservancy spearheaded a campaign to protect the core of the ranch and along with various governmental agencies commenced in preserving this important natural and historical area. While area school children are introduced to the plateau through field trips, and local hikers have found their way here, the SRPER is still relatively unknown. On my most recent trip, I spent a day hiking 12 miles while encountering only three other hikers. It’s one of my favorite places to hike and explore in Southern California.
Craig Romano
More than 40 miles of well-marked trails, many of them double-track old ranch roads, traverse the property. A visitor’s center at the main trailhead will help get you orientated to the preserve. Within minutes of heading down the preserve’s trails you’ll immediately sense that this place is of significant ecological importance. It harbors the largest remaining stands of Englemann oak, a tree only native to coastal northern Mexico and southern California. The plateau is home to 49 endangered, threatened or rare species including white-tailed kites, badgers and western pond turtles. Its vernal pools harbor the only known populations of a fairy shrimp species. Coyotes are prolific and easily observed, especially during the late afternoons. On my last hike here I was astounded (and a little shaken) to see a mountain lion—a not so rare sighting in this wild corner of Southern California.
While the preserve’s fauna is fascinating, it’s the plateau’s flora and geology that really enchant me. You can amble through wildflower meadows, granite boulder fields, riparian forests of sycamores, oak savanna, chaparral, cactus patches and volcanic soil flats harboring vernal pools. The landscape rolls and around every bend and up every slope, new perspectives of the surrounding countryside are revealed. Towering Mounts San Jacinto and San Gorgonio, two of the highest summits in Southern California dominate the horizon. From the preserve’s Monument Hill you can see the Pacific Ocean—and in the far distance, the San Diego skyline, a reminder of the modern world’s proximity. But continue your hike and quickly return to a Southern California before housing tracts, warehouses and freeways carved it up.
Find preserve information and a trail map at https://rivcoparks.org/santa-rosa-plateau-wildlife-area. For information on nearby accommodations and other attractions visit www.visittemeculavalley.com.