Palomar Mountain State Park

In a county where chaparral is the dominant land cover, this park with large, ancient trees gives a visitor the feeling of being in the High Sierras. The park covers 1,869 acres. The majority of the park is coniferous forest, but there are also wetlands, ponds, and meadows. Tree species include white fir, bigcone, Douglas fir, black oak, canyon live oak, coast live oak, incense cedar, coulter pine, and ponderosa pine. Many of the trees appear to be old growth, although most of the forest has not been dated and there was likely some selective logging in the past. Two impressively large incense cedars in the Silvercrest picnic area have been dated to be 400 years old, and a ring count on a cut big Cone Douglas fir showed it to be over 300 years old.