The most notable and organized session took place on March 7 when 20, 000 people descended on the Bixby Knolls section of Long Beach to glimpse the monolith.
The valley itself, about a 20-minute drive inland from the coast, is idyllic in a fruit-crate-picture sort of way, with gentle spruce- and fir-topped slopes, and vineyards contoured over swelling knolls.