Montana de Oro

Headed BlotheC with Viet Mac, A well known Los Gato CA photographer, Last Saturday in Montana De Oro one of California's top 3 state parks. The park lays sixteen miles southwest of Morro Bay and seven miles south of Los Osos. The name "Mountain of Gold" comes from the golden wildflowers found in the park.
Five hundred years ago, when Europeans first arrived on the California's central coast, they found it inhabited by the Chumash Indians. An estimated 20,000 to 30,000 of them lived in small villages spread over a territory which extended from Morro Bay south to Malibu. Although the Chumash depended heavily upon the sea, they also drew on many other sources for food, clothing, and shelter, and were probably part of a large trading network. The Spanish Explorers who visited the Montana de Oro area in 1542 recorded that the Indians were attractive, friendly people who paddled out to greet them in canoes.Most died from European diseases to which they had no immunity. The survivors abandoned their villages and disappeared. With them, their customs, heritage and culture all but vanished as well. Traces of Chumash middens (refuse mounds) and village sites can still be seen in the park, but our knowledge of the Chumash culture remains a little sketchy.
in 1892, The northern land was owned by Alexander S. Hazard, who also raised crops and maintained a dairy. Hoping to cash in on California's growing need for timber, he planted hundreds of eucalyptus trees, turning Hazard Canyon into a prospective lumber farm. Unfortunately, eucalyptus proved unsatisfactory for commercial use. In the early 1940s, a flood scoured Hazard Canyon, and in 1947 a grass fire burned up the coast from Diablo Canyon, destroying much of what had been the Hazard dairy buildings. However, Hazard's legacy, the rows of eucalyptus trees, still remains today. Now that you got your facts sraight you can check out some of the photos we logged.