Las Garzas Creek is a 9.0-mile-long (14.5 km)[4] northeastward-flowing stream, the lowermost major tributary of the Carmel River.

It originates about 1.2 miles (1.9 km) southeast of Palo Corona summit[5] on a saddle between Patriarch Ridge[6] and an unnamed peak to its south.

Arthur C. Oppenheimer bought it in foreclosure in the early 1930s and made it into a cattle ranch, then in 1990 it was acquired by the Pacific Union Company which changed the name back to "Rancho San Carlos".

[9] Its source is at 2,814 feet (858 m) elevation east of the watershed divide just south of Patriarch Ridge on the eastern edge of Joshua Creek Canyon Ecological Reserve in the northern Santa Lucia Range.

[9] Steelhead trout (Onchorhynchus mykiss) spawn and rear in Las Garzas Creek, although California Department of Fish and Wildlife staff indicated that "The major factors limiting steelhead production are inadequate sized gravels for spawning and low stream flows… The low stream flows during the summer could be supplemented with flow releases from Moore Lake, especially later in the summer when Las Garzas Creek becomes intermittent" and access as far upstream as Robinson Canyon Road is blocked by boulder cascades.