Look Here First

Kathleen McCormick’s Crested Butte, Colo. (“Mountain Bloom Town,” June 14) sounded so fantastic until we looked around in our own neighborhood. On a simple three-hour hike on a foggy Tuesday morning in Malibu Creek State Park, my husband and I saw wildflowers to drive you to distraction.

There was a whole hillside of Matilija poppies, plus fields of farewell-to-spring, mustard, California hedge nettle and purple vetch, to say nothing of golden mariposa lilies, mountain aster, woolly blue curl and even a few late Humboldt lilies. We got up to 37 flowers, just counting the ones whose names we knew.

You don’t have to have plane tickets, vacation time or even a smidgen of camping skills. There’s a “bloom town” right at hand almost everywhere you go in the Santa Monica Mountains.

FRANCES SPIELBERG

Pacific Palisades