California Events

The wildflower season

February to April, desert first and mountains last: in a superbloom year Anza-Borrego's Borrego Springs grows from about 3,400 residents to some 200,000 visitors, and the poppy fields inland from Los Angeles draw the same crowds.

The waterfalls

Late spring, when Yosemite Falls -- 2,425 feet in three sections -- and the valley's other falls run at their peak on the snowmelt, before the high country opens with Tioga Pass at the end of May.

The whales and the seals

Gray whales pass the headlands southbound in winter and northbound in spring; elephant seals crowd the beaches at Piedras Blancas near San Simeon and Año Nuevo in the winter breeding season, and sea otters work the kelp off Monterey and Big Sur all year.

Monterey's festivals

The annual Monterey Jazz Festival and the California Roots Music and Arts Festival, both on the peninsula that also holds Cannery Row and the aquarium.

The harvest

September and October in Napa, Sonoma and the Central Coast, the warmest and clearest weeks on the coast and the height of the fire season inland.

The snow

From the first storms of November into spring at Lake Tahoe, where the 1960 Olympic resort averages 400 inches a year, and at Mammoth and Mount Shasta; Tioga Pass closes around the end of October.

No events authority answered a script for this page, so dates for ticketed festivals are not given; the seasons above are the encyclopaedia's.