North Etiwanda Preserve
Rancho Cucamonga, CA
The 766-acre North Etiwanda Preserve protects alluvial fan sage scrub habitat at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains with trails along Day Creek and Etiwanda Creek drainages. The preserve offers southward views across the entire Inland Empire basin with dramatic mountain ridgelines rising directly behind. Wildflower blooms in spring bring California poppies, lupine, and buckwheat across the rocky terrain.
Photography Guide
- Best Time
- golden hour
- Crowds
- Moderate
- Shot Types
- widelandscapedetail
- Best Seasons
- springwinter
Author's Comments
The first time I came up here was in late March, the morning after a hard rain, and the air was scrubbed clean in a way that the Inland Empire rarely allows. From the upper trail you can see all the way to the Santa Ana Mountains on a good day, the basin spread out below in its grid of streets and rooftops, and behind you the San Gabriels rise so abruptly that the scale takes a minute to settle into the eye. The preserve is alluvial fan country, which means rocky and washed and not particularly green for most of the year. That is part of what I like about it. The plant life is low and sparse and the geology does most of the talking. In spring the poppies come in patches rather than fields, and the lupine threads through the buckwheat in a way that rewards a slower walk and a longer look. This is detail work as much as landscape work. The wide shot is there if you want it, and golden hour does generous things to the ridgelines, but I have come away with my favorite frames from kneeling next to a single flowering shrub and waiting for the light to come around. Go in the morning if you want the mountains. Go in the late afternoon if you want the valley. After rain is when the haze lifts and the preserve becomes the place it is supposed to be.
Gallery
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