![]() ![]() Jet skis whip past pontoons full of weekend warriors baking in the mountain sun, occasionally sliding off to dip into the freezing cold water. If you cruise up Highway 168 from the Central Valley on the weekend, though, it’s clear that Shaver’s industrial origins are the last thing on anyone’s mind-this is a sporting lake of the highest order. It is part of a series of them built in this section of the Sierra Nevadas by Southern California Edison in the early 1900s to create the Big Creek Hydroelectric Project. Shaver Lake is not technically a lake so much as it is a reservoir. Backpack around and camp overnight, or haul kayaks on the ferry and paddle around for the day to see the islands from the water. As the website warns, there are “no remedies for poor planning once you have arrived.” But with that isolation also comes stunning coastal beauty: rocky cliffs, pebble beaches, tide pools, and unique plants to discover like you’re Darwin in the Galapagos. Once you’re there, though, it is about as remote and secluded as you can get in California-there are no restaurants, stores, or gear rentals on the island, and cell service is spotty at best. ![]() That means to get to any of the five national park islands, you need to get on a boat, either a private one you acquire or a public one run by Island Packers. The Channel Islands are eight distinct islands off the Southern California coast, five of which are designated as national parkland and seven of which have no permanent human settlements (the eighth is Catalina Island). These are the most beautiful hidden places to visit this spring. To help you take advantage of this magnificent time of year, we’ve put together a list of particularly beautiful places in California that fly a little below the radar, from secret spots you may have been driving right past for years to remote areas that take a special trip all their own. There are native wildflowers in bloom, the produce is out of control, and the camping is immaculate. It’s already warm enough to spend afternoons lounging and drinking on the beach, and it’s still cold enough for snow sports in the mountains. The state is lovely year-round, and you may understandably associate the West Coast with summer, but spring is an exceptional season to get outdoors and explore California. So whether you’re looking for giant redwood trees, epic sunsets over painted rocks, big waves crashing into a jagged coastline, or hidden creeks burbling through boulder-strewn ravines, California has it-and just about any other dramatic natural vista you can imagine, too. There is the desert in the Southeast, forests along the coast, mountain ranges running the length of the state, and one of the most fertile growing regions in the world right in the middle. You move to California for city life, maybe chasing a dream to Hollywood or hauling new tech to Silicon Valley, but you stay for nature. ![]()
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