Carrizo Plain National Monument, National monument in San Luis Obispo County, California, United States

Carrizo Plain National Monument is a protected area in inland California, spread across parts of Kern County and San Luis Obispo County. At its center sits Soda Lake, a flat salt lake that can dry out or fill with water depending on the season, surrounded by open grassland and low hills.

The area was designated a National Monument in 2001 by President Clinton to protect the land from further agricultural use. Before that, ranchers and farmers had worked it for many decades, shaping much of how the land looks today.

Painted Rock is a sandstone alcove on the plain's edge, sacred to the Chumash, whose pictographs were made over some three thousand years. The rock and other sites form a Historic District designated a National Historic Landmark in 2012. The name Carrizo comes from the Spanish word for reed grass.

There are no stores, gas stations, or water sources inside the monument, so bring everything you need from a nearby town before arriving. Some roads are unpaved, and a vehicle with good ground clearance helps for reaching certain areas.

Wallace Creek crosses the San Andreas Fault and its bed has been offset about 425 feet by fault movement, including roughly 23 feet during the 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake. Geologists used trenches here to calculate one of the first slip rates for the fault.