Last Saturday I led a family from County Cork, Ireland on a guided hike from Muir Woods to Stinson Beach. The following day, I led another group on the same exact route -- but thanks to California's changeable coastal weather and unpredictable wildlife, the experience was far different.
Saturday was clear, dry and warm when we arrived at Muir Woods. The youngest child was nine years old -- a year younger than I usually allow on this five-mile hike, but her Mom and Dad assured me she should could make it. Luckily, the hardest part is at the beginning -- a steep climb from shady Redwood Creek to sunbaked grassland on the Dipsea Trail, an old Miwok Indian route from Mill Valley to the ocean. The Miwoks agreed with mathematicians that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, so they went in a nearly-straight bee-line up and out of Mill Valley (a route so steep it's now traversed by 572 steps), down almost to sea level at Redwood Creek, then steeply up and over the southwest shoulder of Mt. Tamalpais.
The hot sun slowed our progress for a short time, but then we re-entered the redwood and Douglas fir forest, stopping to pick and eat ripe wild huckleberries and thimbleberries. The shade lasted until the trail leveled off and took us across a grassy hillside with a fantastic view of the Pacific Ocean, Marin Headlands, San Francisco, and San Bruno and Montara Mountains in the distance -- a view that visitors on tour buses never see. On the sunny parts of the trail, finger-sized lizards made frequent appearances.
We then descended into a steep ravine named, naturally, Steep Ravine. Beneath Canyon Live Oaks, Bay Trees, and redwoods, we followed the switchbacks downward. I remember there were no switchbacks here when I ran the Dipsea Race back in 1975 -- it was a headlong plunge downward, with the bark on young oak trees worn smooth by thousands of runners' hands grabbing them to slow their descent from breakneck to just hazardous. Switchbacks, never used on Indian trails, were added later to prevent soil erosion on the overused near-vertical slope.
Several hundred yards later, we heard the sounds of water in a stream, and then crossed it on a narrow wooden bridge -- one of the few streams in southern Marin County that flows even during the long dry season. Beneath the bridge, one of the kids spotted a small fish, most likely a fingerling trout, progeny of the half dozen full-sized trout we saw in the cool, clear water of a pond behind a small dam another hundred yards downstream.
Having reached the bottom of the ravine, we had to climb out the other side, but it was a short walk to another spectacular view, this time looking north to Stinson Beach, Bolinas Lagoon, and Inverness Ridge in Point Reyes National Seashore. We ambled down into the beach town, and onto the beach, with just enough time to catch the West Marin Stage -- a bus -- back to the Mountain Home Inn, a restaurant on a scenic perch high on the ridge overlooking Mill Valley and San Francisco Bay. It took environmentalists nearly 80 years to win protection for the lands we had walked through in a day, but it only took half an hour to cross it on a bus.
I had only one taker -- the Irish Dad -- for the final two miles through Muir Woods back to our starting point. We returned to Mountain Home with the minivan to pick up the others for the ride back to San Francisco. And the next day, I did it all again with a different group -- only this time, it was foggy and cool most of the way. There were even muddy places in the trail from the fog moisture dripping from the trees. And at the beach, we watched the spectacle of a flock of pelicans diving into the surf repeatedly, like avian bombs, to catch small fish. The hungry birds were oblivious to wet-suited humans boogy boarding only a few yards away.
These two back-to-back, but varied tours reminded me of something pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson once said: "Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life."
July 3, 2008
Point Reyes Lakes and Waterfalls
The first stop on last Sunday's tour was Bolinas Lagoon, where a group of eight to 10 seals typically waits out low tide on a sand bar. They're so motionless that from a distance they look like driftwood -- until one of them waves a flipper. Sure enough, the "driftwood" could be seen with naked eyes, but viewed through binoculars they were clearly seals.
Then we drove on to the Palomarin Trailhead, about 10 miles farther, which is the southern entrance to Point Reyes National Seashore, for my favorite hike in the San Francisco Bay Area. With our daypacks, we headed north, first going through a grove of Australian Blue Gum Eucalyptus trees that's the most visible remnant of a religious community that lived on the site in the 1930s to 1950s. The grove had been thinned considerably since last year, in an effort by the National Park Service to preserve historic trees that predate the park, but clear the ground for the return of native plants, which can't survive the shower of Eucalyptus leaves and bark from a thick stand of Eucalyptus.
Leaving the trees behind, we headed through a mile of coastal sage scrub, sampling ripe California blackberries along the way, as well as a few thimbleberries and salmonberries, which grew near creeks. But we did not, however, eat the shiny, inedible, red elderberries. At two and a half miles, we stopped for lunch at one of California's prettiest lakes -- Bass Lake, so called because its wealthy owner once stocked it with bass for private fishing parties. The fish are long gone, and the lake is back to its natural state -- fishless, but still deep, cool, and surrounded by native forests of alder, bay, and douglas fir.
At three miles, we passed Pelican Lake, in a bowl-like setting overlooking the ocean, and then headed to Alamere Falls, a series of four year-round waterfalls that tumble down a series of cliffs to the beach. The falls never stop because unlike other other waterfalls in the San Francisco Bay Area, they're fed by springs, not rainfall.
If tour buses could drive to Alamere Falls, it would probably be as crowded as Muir Woods. But Alamere Falls' beauty is all the more satisfying because you have to earn it by walking there. And on the return trip, along a clifftop trail, we used binoculars to see all four of the Farallon Islands. Which is four more than the tour bus crowds ever see.
June 22, 2008
Big Sur and its back country
Last week's Big Sur tour is the only one on our schedule that starts on a military base -- Hunter Liggett, in Monterey County. We start there because it's a huge piece of unspoiled, natural California -- vast oak savannahs and hills west of King City. But this time, as we approached Mission San Antonio, giant white and gray smoke clouds rose in the distance from "The Indians" fire, which has burned 50,000 acres (about one-and-a-half times the size of San Francisco) in the past 10 days and is still burning.
Mission San Antonio is the only one of California's 21 Spanish missions that still looks like it did in the mission era, because it's so isolated. Originally on the Spanish trail grandiosely named "El Camino Real" (the Royal Highway), it was bypassed by railroad builders in the late 1800s and by highway builders since then. William Randolph Hearst bought the area from cattle ranchers in the early 1900s, as part of his huge property surrounding Hearst Castle, then the U.S. Army bought it for a training base just before World War II.
The Salinan Indians once populated this area, and a few of them still do -- we passed their meeting house on the road from King City to the ghost town of Jolon, just inside the Hunter Liggett property.
Firetrucks passed the mission on their way to the fire, which was burning a remote area of the Los Padres National Forest adjacent to the military base. Fires in the Big Sur back country are virtually unstoppable because the terrain is steep, dry, brushy and mostly roadless. Next spring, however, the seemingly dead shrubs will sprout new greenery from their living roots. Like all the native plants, they are well-adapted to fire.
We skirted the fire by several miles, crested the ridge of the Santa Lucia Mountains, then descended toward the coast -- just two miles, as the crow flies, from the ridgeline. The ocean was covered by a vast blanket of fog, and as soon as we entered it, the temperature dropped by about 25 degrees Fahrenheit -- one of the world's most dramatic weather changes in the space of about 200 meters.
A few minutes later, we hit coastal Highway 1, turned north, and pulled into Limekiln State Park, where we camped. The next day, we walked through a cool, lush redwood forest along a clear, rushing creek that bounded downhill in many small waterfalls. Almost every mile along the Big Sur Coast, another clear stream tumbles out of the mountains and into the sea.
This exemplifies Big Sur -- cold streams dropping precipitously out of the hot, dry, steep mountains into cool redwood forests and then plunging into the sea, most dramatically at McWay Falls, in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park.
The biggest stream on this coastline, the Big Sur River, doesn't plunge into the ocean, but winds its way through a narrow coastal valley, through oaks, then redwoods, then sycamores and alders. But you can plunge into it, for a bracing swim in a deep swimming hole, like we did. Join us on next year's Big Sur trip to experience these natural wonders of California -- and more.
May 27, 2008
Last Wildflowers of Spring; Marin Eco-History
Throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, observant hikers are now seeing the final native wildflowers of Spring: Buckeye trees covered with hundreds of stunning stems resembling white bottlebrushes; deep pink Clarkia, aka "Farewell to Spring"; and in shady places, the tiny light pink blooms of Starflower, and the white star-shaped flowers of Thimbleberry.
A few earlier wildflowers, like Douglas iris and Crimson Columbine, still bloom in the darkest, coolest, shadiest spots, such as on the trails of Tomales Bay State Park in Marin County, where I went on Sunday. This park is one of many natural areas of Marin that the Marin Conservation League (MCL) saved from development.
The MCL was founded by four women in 1934. All were active members of the Marin Art and Garden Club: Carolyn Sealy Livermore, Sepha Evers, Helen Van Pelt, and Portia Forbes. They also oversaw the county's first planning survey in 1934, which guided county planners for the next 36 years.
These four women worked tirelessly to save land and build Marin's environmental movement in the 1930s through the 1960s -- more than 30 years. During this period, these four women successfully raised private funding, and lobbied for public funding to purchase and protect the lands that became Tomales Bay State Park, Samuel P. Taylor S.P., Mt. Tamalpais S.P., Stinson Beach, Angel Island, and the Richardson Bay Wildlife Refuge.
Carolyn Livermore founded the Angel Island Foundation in 1945, when World War II ended, to advocate for transforming the island from military base to park. At the urging of Livermore and the MCL, the California State Parks Department acquired the island in three land purchases in 1954, 1958, and 1962. Livermore passed away in 1968, and Angel Island's peak was named Mount Livermore in honor of her 17-year effort.
The MCL was also involved in the successful campaigns to create the Point Reyes National Seashore, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and the Marin County Open Space District in the early 1970s. The last of the four founders, Sepha Evers, passed away in 1976. But they left a fantastic legacy: They saved some of the county's best natural areas forever.
May 7, 2008
Did Killing Cougars Wipe Out Yosemite Wildflowers?
A new study on the ecological impact of efforts to extirpate mountain lions from Yosemite Valley in the 1920s suggests that cougar removal triggered a chain reaction of changes throughout the area’s food chain, ultimately destroying oaks and wildflowers that once thrived on the valley floor. The report by Oregon State University’s William Ripple and Robert Beschta was published online in the journal Biological Conservation.
According to the scientists, removal of the cougars, predators at the top of the food chain, allowed deer to proliferate in the valley. The deer ate oak seedlings but not conifer seedlings, allowing the conifers (pines and firs) to eventually overshadow and replace most of the valley’s oaks. This caused once-common wildflowers like evening primroses on the forest floor to die out, and be replaced by conifer-friendly ferns and grasses.
From 1907 until 1963, the State of California paid a bounty on mountain lions to anyone who brought in the head or skin of one. During the 1920s and 1930s, the state also employed two professional cougar exterminators who responded to any report of a mountain lion by bringing in their trained hunting dogs. The dogs generally tracked down the big cat and chased it up a tree, where it would be shot by the hunter. At the time, cougars were regarded as harmful “varmints” (vermin) that preyed on people and livestock. The science of ecology has since proven John Muir’s saying that all living things are “hitched to everything else.”
Mountain lion hunting has been outlawed in California since 1972, except when the State Department of Fish and Game issues a “depredation permit” to allow a specific cougar to be hunted down and killed if it has been attacking livestock or threatening people. Attacks on people are extremely rare. No one has been killed by a mountain lion in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1909, when a sick, rabid lion bit two people near Morgan Hill in Santa Clara County. The bites were not fatal, but the rabies was.
Take An Hour Walk: Wildlife and Solitude By I-280
People in cars whizzing through the Crystal Springs Watershed on I-280 in San Mateo County are often struck by the way I-280 divides urban areas on its east side from pristine watershed lands on its west side. These watershed lands are a haven for wildlife, and portions of them are open to the public. One such area is the Sawyer Camp Trail, the county’s most heavily used trail, which begins just north of Crystal Springs Dam (beneath the Doran Bridge on I-280). Another is the Sheep Camp Trail, which can be reached from I-280 southbound at the exit to a vista point about one mile south of the I-280/92 Interchange.
The trail west of I-280 is only a mile long, but it’s like stepping back in time to the 1800s. The freeway is out of sight, out of hearing. The trail is usually deserted, except for wildlife. Walking at dusk, you see deer, and maybe some California quail and brush rabbits – amazing furry creatures that survive the long dry season without water except the morning dew on (and in) plants. When the trail ends, continue south on Canada Road ¼ mile to the San Francisco Water Department’s historic 1934 Pulgas Water Temple, which has reopened after several years of closure. And just south of that are native oak savannah, a huge mansion, and gardens of the Filoli Estate, where Dynasty was filmed in the 1980s, and deer roam. Turn around, retrace your steps, and you’ll be back at the vista point in half an hour.
April 23, 2008
Everything Blooming Everywhere
Over the past two weeks, I've been on hikes, runs, and shorter walks in the Marin Headlands, San Bruno Mountain, Wildcat Canyon Regional Park in the East Bay, and Golden Gate Park. The good news is, there are more flowers in bloom than any other time of year. Even the native Poison Oak has flowers on it, if you look closely (but don't touch!). Some early wildflowers are still out (generally on the north slopes of hills, where they don't get much sun), and some late ones (like orange Sticky Monkeyflower) are already out (generally on south-facing slopes, facing the sun all day).
The bad news is, it will be over before you know it.
The weekend of April 12-13 was unseasonably hot, speeding up the flowering of the late-bloomers. Everything on San Bruno Mountain April 12 was still green and lush, but it was as hot and dry as early October, foreshadowing the dry season to come. The next day I led a hike in the Marin Headlands where we identified 95 different plant species, mostly native wildflowers and shrubs in bloom.
On April 18, I led an elementary school field trip at Wildcat Canyon, starting at Alvarado Park in Richmond. There, we looked at the ancient Ohlone Indian bedrock mortars used not just for grinding acorns -- in addition to large round depressions (diameter 3-6") there were also small, 1-2" diameter round depressions in the rock believed to have been used by Indians pulverizing minerals for body paint and other ceremonial purposes. While walking along Wildcat Creek, the kids also observed an Anna's Hummingbird making its characteristic "J" flight of mating season -- slowly up to the top of the "J," perhaps 100 feet above the ground, then suddenly straight down to about 30 feet, then turning rapidly up to about 50, completing a "J" in about two seconds flat. Annual grasses in the hills above the creek were still green, but were scattering their seeds, in their final act before dying and drying for the summer. Hundreds of tiny pollywogs swam in a drying pond in inch-deep water, fascinating some of the kids, who drew closer until they sank ankle-deep in mud.
In Golden Gate Park, Spring's arrival is heralded by two species of the native shrub Ceanothus (aka Blueblossom, California Lilac), and two species of exotic flowering cherries, all visible in the less-manicured western half of the park. First come the deep blue Ceanothus with tiny dark leaves, making a striking blue shrub. Simultaneously, the delicate, light-pink cherries blossom, while the trees are still leafless. A couple of weeks later, the roles are reversed: A different flowering cherry covered with fist-sized deep-pink blooms commands everyone's attention, while another Ceanothus, with large leaves and light blue flower stalks, makes a more modest show.
It's a great time for birding in Golden Gate Park, with birders reporting seeing up to 80 species on a single outing. Red-tailed hawks cruise the skies looking for unwary gophers and other rodents. Swallows dip and dart over lakes, catching mosquitoes. A great blue heron regularly hangs out at Elk Glen Lake, probably making its nest on the island in Stow Lake. Honking geese fly over Spreckels Lake at dusk.
Don't miss this once-a-year burst of blooms and activity. Shut down your computer. Go outside and see it.
April 11, 2008
Wildflowers Shine on Mt. Diablo -- Thanks to Mary Bowerman, Art Bonwell
On April 6, David led a group of wildflower lovers through Mount Diablo’s Mitchell Canyon in search of the rare Mt. Diablo Fairy Lantern (Calochortus pulchellus) a rare native lemon-yellow tulip that grows only in a few spots on the mountain – and nowhere else. The searchers spotted about a dozen of the plants, each with a flower or two blooming. It’s just one of 650 species of plants found on the mountain, making it one of California’s richest examples of botanical diversity.
We can thank the late Mary Bowerman not just for her book on Mt. Diablo’s flora, published in 1944, but for her determined and successful efforts to save it from urban development. In 1971 she and fellow Sierra Club activist Art Bonwell founded Save Mount Diablo. The group has lobbied constantly for state and local funding to purchase and protect open space lands on and around the mountain. Bowerman remained an active board member until her death at age 97 on August 21, 2005.
The CNT wildflower walkers didn’t see this species, but they did identify dozens of others. Even before reaching the park entrance, everyone drove by a grassy hillside covered with thousands of blue Ithuriel’s Spear (Triteleia laxa), a perennial that grows from an edible bulb once harvested and eaten by California Indians. Along the trail were bushes festooned with yellow daisies – Interior Goldenbush (Ericameria linearifolia). Deep in the rocky canyons were vines of white-flowered Virgin’s Bower (Clematis ligustifolia), and bushy blueblossom (Ceanothus). And purple-and-white lupines (a tiny annual and a bushy perennial) and Chinese Houses (Collinsia), yellow-and-black violets (Viola pedunculata), pink serrated onions (Allium serra), off-white Fern Phacelia (Phacelia distans), and many more.
The mountain is not just a visual landmark, but one of California’s greatest examples of botanical diversity. No one paid much attention to it until Mary Leolin Bowerman, an undergraduate botany student at U.C. Berkeley in 1930, began trekking all over the mountain cataloguing its plants for her senior thesis. But there were so many species she continued the project as a Master’s Thesis, and finally a Ph.D. dissertation. She found more than 600 species of plants on the mountain, most of them native. She also accounted for the incredible diversity: Mt. Diablo sits at a kind of botanical crossroads between the weather extremes of cool coast and hot interior, and between species common to the north Coast Ranges, and the south Coast Ranges. And, it has varying elevations, geology, and sun exposure, creating a mosaic of different micro-habitats.
Back in 1936, she had been the last person to see the extremely rare Mount Diablo Buckwheat (Eriogonum truncatum) alive. For nearly 70 years, the species was presumed extinct. Then, on May 10, 2005, just months before her passing, a botany student rediscovered it on the mountain, completing, in a sense, her life’s circle. Botanists are now collecting its seeds and propagating the plant to ensure it does not vanish again.
April 3, 2008
Sweeney Ridge, Crystal Springs Trail Bike Ride
At the west end of suburban Sneath Lane in San Bruno, the houses stop abruptly and the road narrows, dips suddenly downhill, and ends at an intimidating metal gate. Beyond it lie the unpopulated, scrub-covered green hills of Sweeney Ridge, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and the Crystal Springs Watershed. Last Sunday I led nine fat-tire bicyclists on a rare excursion into these untrod lands.
After helping each other lift our bikes over the fence, we started up the long, narrow paved road to the ridge. It was built about 50 years ago to provide access to a Nike Missile site, abandoned since the missiles became obsolete a few years later. Instead we visited a much more significant historic site: two monuments marking the discovery of San Francisco Bay by a Spanish land expedition under the command of Gaspar de Portola on November 2, 1769. This, for the Bay Area, was the dawn of recorded history.
Of course they weren't the first people to discover the bay, and they knew it. "[The soldiers] had seen an immense arm of the sea or estuary," wrote diarist Miguel Costanso, who was on the expedition. "They had seen some beautiful plains studded with trees . . . from the columns of smoke they had noticed all over the level country, there was no doubt that the land must be well-populated with natives."
Our bicycle expedition headed south, now on a dirt road along the top of Sweeney Ridge. In the distance stood Montara Mountain, a dark green wall on the south edge of Pacifica. Eventually we came to a higher, even more intimidating gate of silvery metal, which swung open for us, thanks to prior arrangement with the San Francisco Water Department, and my status as a docent. We entered the vast Crystal Springs Watershed, larger than the city itself, which has been almost completely forbidden to the public since 1914.
Inside the watershed gate, the hills got steeper, and the brisk wind stronger, until finally we stopped for lunch in a wind-sheltered area. Along the way we'd seen wildflowers, such as light yellow Footsteps of Spring, purple Douglas Iris, and deep yellow Wallflower, but not in profusion. The Water Department and its pre-1930 predecessor, the Spring Valley Water Co., have excluded people and fire since 1914, and cattle since 1940. Without fire and cattle, coastal scrub species, especially Coyote Brush, have advanced at the expense of grassland and wildflowers.
After lunch, we took a short walk, just a few steps farther down the road. And suddenly, on the almost-bare rock of a road cut just a few feet high, we saw: The rare, dark pink-flowered Coast Rock Cress, in full bloom, by the dozens. Before this, I'd never seen more than three or four of these little plants together. By exposing the rock, more than a half century ago, the road builders had created perfect habitat for this species, and we were there at just the right time of year to see it in bloom. It only grows on rocky areas of coastal scrub and grassland from Sonoma to Santa Cruz Counties -- and it's difficult to find even if you know where to look.
The ride back was mostly downhill, and we made good time without much effort. It was an exhilirating, cool, windy day with a great group of people and fantastic views of the ocean, the bay, Montara and San Bruno Mountains. But the dark pink Coast Rock Cress made it even better.
March 15-16, 2008
San Bruno Mountain Walk, Sawyer Camp Trail Bike Ride
San Bruno Mountain looms like a wall between San Francisco and the Peninsula, forming a steep green physical barrier that separates the city from the suburbs. Drivers speed past it on the 101 and 280 freeways, paying little attention to its huge bulk. Most people in San Francisco can't see it, because their view is blocked by the city's hills. But from certain spots, like Mount Davidson, Twin Peaks, and the tops of certain downtown high-rise buildings, like the one I'm in on the weekdays, it's absolutely huge, even though it's several miles away.
Those who make the effort to find their way to the mountain's summit, like the group I was with on March 15, find a lush, diverse miniature forest of native shrubs, grasses, and wildflowers. Within a 200-yard distance, we identified five species and subspecies of the native shrub manzanita, including two that live only on San Bruno Mountain, one that grows mostly on Montara Mountain 10 miles to the south, and one that grows all around the world's northern areas. Rarely, if ever, can a botanist find five different, yet closely related plants in a natural habitat within spitting distance of each other. Luckily, Ken Himes of the Santa Clara Chapter of the California Native Plant Society was with us to tell them apart. It's not easy -- four of them are low-growing mats of shrubbery that look similar, except to experts. Some of the manzanitas were in bloom, with their tiny lantern-shaped white flowers.
But my favorite plant find of the day was San Francisco Campion, a three-inch high flower that's a member of the "pink," or carnation family. Fairly common in San Francisco during the Gold Rush Era, the flower is now extremely rare, existing only as a few isolated individuals on San Bruno Mountain. And it has a melodic Latin name: Silene verecunda verecunda. We saw one individual -- and marveled at its survival.
We also marveled at the audacity of destruction proposed by would-be developers of San Bruno Mountain in the mid-1960s: They wanted to decapitate the summit, and dump the top 200 feet of the mountain into the Bay to create a filled area ten miles long and a mile wide. San Francisco Bay Guardian owner Bruce Brugmann broke the story when he was working for a Redwood City newspaper, and public outrage killed the plan -- but it took 20 more years of struggle before most of the mountain was purchased by the state and San Mateo County, and opened to the public as a park in 1985.
The next day, I took a bike ride with a friend on the Sawyer Camp Trail, a paved bike path that parallels I-280 between the freeway and Crystal Springs Reservoir. The trail is an old wagon road once used by Sunday picnickers from San Francisco, who gathered beneath a huge old Bay tree now marked as the Jepson Laurel -- the state's largest California Laurel. "Jepson" refers to the state's late, great, pre-eminent botanist, UC Berkeley's Willis Lynn Jepson.
The path winds through oak and bay forest, and is cool and green all year round. But this day, every 50 yards or so, we saw huge numbers of bright red Indian Warrior (Pedicularis densiflora), an eight-inch high, Christmas-tree shaped plant whose top two or three inches is deep red. My friend observed that Indian Warrior seemed to have a relationship with the trees, for it was growing almost exclusively beneath the branches of large trees, mainly oaks.
And the profusion of Indian Warrior was fantastic -- thousands upon thousands of them. I'd never seen more than a couple of dozen on any single day before.
So if you want to see an example of California wildflowers in numbers seen by early botanists, hurry down to the Sawyer Camp Trail and look for the fields of red beneath the trees.
February 18, 2008
Habitat Restoration Volunteer Day at Mori Point
On Saturday Feb. 16, three groups of volunteers met at Mori Point in Pacifica to restore habitat for the endangered California Red-legged Frog and San Francisco Garter Snake: Pacifica residents, California Nature Tours, and a group from the San Francisco Zoo. It was a beautiful sunny day on this headland overlooking Pacifica's longest beach, and people had a great time learning about the new ponds, planting native plants, and seeing early wildlflowers.
Luckily, photographer Dale Mead was on hand to record the event. Here's a link to the photo gallery he made on Flickr:
Check it out, then come back here to read more.
Until now, the rare and endangered frog and snake have lived in wetlands surrounding a couple of natural ponds known as Laguna Salada in the Sharp Park Golf Course, owned by the city of San Francisco. A dike built decades ago between the golf course and the beach made the ponds fresh, rather than salty. Both species live only in an around fresh water.
The stunningly beautiful blue-red-and-black striped snake, known to biologists as Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia, is especially vulnerable because it lives only in a few freshwater wetlands in San Mateo County -- nowhere else in the world, except for those living in captivity at the Zoo or in private collections outside the U.S. (possessing it here without a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a violation of the Endangered Species Act). The problem is that eventually, the ocean will breach the dike, turning the ponds salty again, and the frog and snake will die out when that happens, unless there's suitable habitat above the reach of the salt water.
So the National Park Service, with funding and staff support from the nonprofit Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy (GGNPA), brought in heavy equipment to excavate three ponds, each a little higher than the other, to give the frogs and snakes extra habitat, and a refuge when the dike is breached. Sue Gardner of the GGNPA explained how the area around each pond site was painstakingly checked to make sure no frogs or snakes would be harmed by the excavators. The pond sites were fenced with snake-proof fencing extending 14 inches underground, and every gopher hole within the fencing was checked for snakes. None were found, so the excavators went to work.
In one of the pond sites, the excavator struck soil contaminated with diesel from an earlier use of the site. The toxic soil had to be removed and sent to a hazardous waste landfill -- which is much more expensive than disposing of clean soil. All three ponds were constructed so they'd be filled naturally by rainwater, and they were. Volunteers then helped plant rushes and other wetland plants around the ponds. This work was all done by the time we got there, so Sue put us to work planting native upland plants like Phacelia and Lizard Tail to restore a former eroding trail that's been replaced (a short distance away) with wooden stairs, as seen in the photos.
Those who walked to the top and out to the end of Mori Point saw the pink wildflower known as Checkerbloom, or Sidalcea malvaeflora. It's a member of the mallow family of plants, one of which, growing in marshes, was formerly used to make a confection called marshmallows. People started adding so much sugar to the confection that they eventually began leaving out the mallow entirely -- today they're made entirely of sugar, though they're still called marshmallows.
To find out more about the Red-legged Frog, San Francisco Garter Snake, and all 33 endangered species of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, go to
GGNRA's Endangered Species Big Year, then come on back and see what's next on our tour schedule.
February 7, 2008
What's So Great About Banana Slugs?
Did you know that banana slugs can lower themselves from trees to the ground on a thin strand of slime? And that banana slugs are the official mascot of the University of California, Santa Cruz?
Some people think banana slugs live only in redwood forests. In fact, they live in forests, scrub, and grasslands as far south as the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara, in some parts of the Sierra, and in the coastal mountains from Santa Barbara north to Alaska. But they can't eat most plants that are not native to California, and that's why we don't see them in most urban areas -- too few native plants to eat.
Instead, there are the ubiquitous French garden snails and European slugs. French restrauteurs brought their snails to the Bay Area from France in the 1850s and raised them in a San Jose vineyard so they could be served in San Franciso restaurants. Needless to say, they didn't stay put in the vineyard, but spread out across the agricultural and urban landscape as an invasive non-native species.
The San Francisco Bay Area has the greatest diversity of all banana slugdom. The most common banana slug, Ariolomax columbianus, lives in the natural (hilly) areas of Santa Clara, Alameda, Marin, Sonoma, Napa, and Solano Counties. Another species, Ariolomax californicus, lives only in San Mateo County. A subspecies, Ariolomax californicus brachyphallus, lives only in San Francisco and northern San Mateo County. Another species, Ariolomax dolichophallus, lives only in Santa Cruz County. These last three are never spotted and often a vivid butter yellow color. Want to know more? Ask for "The Banana Slug," by Alice Bryant Harper (Bay Leaves Press, Aptos, California, 1988).
January 30, 2008
Muir Woods Salmon and Slugs
A few days ago I led the second of two walks in Muir Woods, a week apart. What a difference a week makes! On Jan. 20, it had not rained for more than a week, and Redwood Creek was down to nearly summertime low water levels -- just a few inches deep, and clear. A week later, after constant rain, there was about 10 times as much water in the creek, the water was cloudy, and rivulets running across the trail from the previous night's rain.
On the 20th, we heard from long-time Muir Woods Ranger Mia Monroe that it was an extraordinarily bad year for salmon spawning -- only two returning Coho salmon had been seen, and one of them was eaten by a river otter. There was no known spawning success. This does not, however, mean that the species is gone from Redwood Creek. On the creek walk, we saw two tiny fish which, on closer examination (with binoculars, from a distance of only about 12 feet), turned out to be a Coho salmon fingerling and a steelhead trout fingerling. The steelhead was brown, the Coho a very light brown, almost white.
Last summer I also saw Coho salmon smolts (juveniles about five inches long) Redwood Creek just inland of Muir Beach. Two researchers from Point Reyes National Seashore had live trapped them, counted, and measured them before putting them back in the creek. They've been swept out to sea by now by the heavy rains of Jan. 22-27, and with luck they'll be returning to spawn in January 2010.
They'll probably need it. On January 30 the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Fall run of Chinook salmon returning to tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers had dropped to 90,000, the second-lowest ever. The lowest was only slightly lower in 1990, the fourth year of a drought, which is always tough on fish that spawn in shallow creeks. This time there was no drought. No one yet knows what caused the population crash, but it could be something these salmon have in common with the coho in Redwood Creek. It may be that conditions in the ocean have changed, such as a shortage of the salmon's food resources -- the shrimp that give salmon meat its orange color.
On Jan. 27, we saw no fish in Redwood Creek, but that doesn't mean there weren't any. We walked only one mile along Redwood Creek, and were unable to see the creek at all times. The water was cloudy. The fish may have come the next day, or the next. And still expected are the steelhead trout, which return to spawn in Redwood Creek in late January through March. At least we saw the slink pod (or fetid adder's tongue -- a foul-smelling flower) and a banana slug!
Both the Muir Woods walks were part of the GGNRA Endangered Species Big Year, a series of events to see and save the 33 endangered species in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area -- more than any other park in the continental U.S. For details, go to www.ggnrabigyear.org , and check our schedule for Feb. 16, when I'll lead a free walk and habitat restoration outing at Mori Point, to see and help save the California Red-legged Frog and the San Francisco Garter Snake.
January 13, 2008
Birding at Ocean Beach in San Francisco
It was a beautiful clear winter morning when we started from the San Francisco Zoo entrance at Sloat and Great Highway. We walked north on the trail next to the Great Highway, stopping here and there to scan the beach with binoculars, in hopes of seeing the tiny, endangered Western Snowy Plover, a shore bird. After about a mile, someone spotted a couple of plovers running at the edge of the waves, looking for even tinier critters to eat. Plovers' tiny legs move incredibly fast.
We continued north onto the concrete ramp that abuts the beach for a few hundred yards. And there, not more than 20 yards away, were several plovers sitting on the sand, resting, together with several similar birds, sanderlings. From a distance, these two species look the same -- small birds that run along the edge of the surf. But close-up, there were differences in color and markings. The plovers are brown with distinctive white patches that give them what looks like a brown collar. The sanderlings are more grey all over, and slightly larger. We saw about a dozen of each. They're both so small they seem like chicks compared to the much larger gulls.
Watching them resting on the sand, as far inland as they can go on the beach, we could see the challenges to their survival. They are hemmed in between concrete and surf. They want to keep a safe distance from dogs and people, but at high tide there's little room for this. When people or dogs get too close, they must flee. Off-leash dogs can exhaust them by running after them, leaving them vulnerable to predators and too tired for sex. Big black ravens, whose population has soared in recent years, eat plover eggs.
Ocean Beach between Sloat and Lincoln Way (the edge of Golden Gate Park) is posted as a protected habitat for Western Snowy Plovers. There are only about a hundred of them in San Francisco, divided between Ocean Beach and Crissy Field in the Presidio. So please, dog owners, keep your dogs on leash on the stretches of beach where you see the signs about the plovers. And beach walkers, give the plovers some breathing room by staying close to the surf's edge, not the dry upper beach where plovers rest. The tiny birds and bird lovers thank you!
Dec 30, 2007
A Winter Day in the Marin Headlands
It was a beautiful bright, clear, cool day in the Marin Headlands. The view from Battery 129 -- also known as Hawk Hill, the highest hill overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge -- was fantastic. I was there guiding a group of visitors from Germany, in my best, but hardly grammatical, German. We sampled a few young leaves of Miner's Lettuce -- a tasty salad green that's the San Francisco Bay Area's commonest edible native plant. California Indians and Gold Rush miners ate it because it tastes good and prevents scurvy. It's a fast-growing annual that only grows during the rainy season.
Later, near the park Visitor Center in Rodeo Valley (in the former military base chapel), I saw my first wildflower bloom of the rainy season -- tiny white-green flowers on a thick twining vine of wild cucumber. In summer, those flowers will become green spiky balls with three hard bean-like seeds inside -- not edible.
The Visitor Center, with its second-to-none collection of park-related books for sale, will be closed for renovations all through January. If you're there and need to see a live person who works in the park, go to the Marine Mammal Center, also in the Rodeo Valley. But the bathrooms and water fountains at the Visitor Center will be still be open.
November 12, 2007
Rodeo Beach, Five Days After Cosco Busan Oil Spill
November 12, 2007: Today was my first chance to get to the shoreline since the 58,000-gallon oil spill from the cargo ship Cosco Busan on November 7. Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands was closed, and no oil was visible, only cleanup workers in white and yellow protective suits. But just off the beach, the stench of oil was powerful. Still, this disaster involves a lot less oil than the disastrous tanker collision beneath the Golden Gate Bridge in January 1971, which spilled more than 800,000 gallons. In time, the coastal environment recovered.
A mile inland in the Rodeo Valley, there was no hint of the Cosco Busan spill. The air was clean on my hilly eight-mile trail run from the Rodeo Valley, through Gerbode Valley, to Tennessee Valley and back again. As I headed downhill in the final mile, I rounded a turn and saw a coyote bounding off the trail only 30 yards away-- and then, a minute later, another coyote ran off the trail, then stopped and watched me pass by. It was the first time I've seen two of these dog-like animals in a single day. Maybe they were cooperating in their hunt for rodents.
October 27, 2007
China Camp State Park
China Camp State Park's Miwok Meadows was quiet on this sunny morning, until someone blew a shrill police whistle, signaling about 150 runners (myself among them) to start the Tamalpa Runners' annual 4.6-mile cross country race. About half an hour later we returned, one by one, sprinting across the finish line.
This park, with its forested hills and grasslands rising from a pristine salt marsh along the San Pablo Bay shoreline, is far too beautiful to rush through in half an hour. So I scheduled a group to meet me for an easy afternoon hike to China Camp, about two miles distant.
China Camp is a the last of about a dozen Chinese shrimp fishing villages that dotted the shores of San Pablo and San Francisco Bays in the late 1800s. The largest was probably at San Francisco's Hunters Point, before the U.S. Navy built a naval shipyard there in 1940. China Camp was undisturbed, but the shrimp catches declined over the years. Then, in the 1950s, the California Department of Fish and Game discovered a new, meatier species of shrimp in the ocean outside the Golden Gate. Soon, nobody wanted the smaller Bay shrimp anymore, except as bait for sturgeon. Only a lone shrimp fisherman remained at China Camp when the state bought the land for a park in 1977.
And he's still there! Now in his eighties, Frank Quan still lives in his family home at China Camp, and occasionally goes out on the Bay in his boat, sets out his nets, and brings back shrimp. We missed seeing him, but visited the excellent historical museum hidden in a ramshackle building at the shore end of a pier jutting into the Bay. On the way back, we walked through Miwok Meadows again, where the race started and finished earlier. This time, all was deserted and still, except for a dozen deer, quietly grazing. We got within 10 yards, watched them for a while, and they hardly noticed. We moved on, silently.
October 8, 2007
Paradise in Point Reyes
October 8, 2007: This was the year's third and final trip to my favorite spot on earth, a certain lake in Marin's Point Reyes National Seashore. This is the best natural swimming hole in the Bay Area, about 100 yards across, cool and very deep, set in a natural bowl clothed with oaks, bay trees, and douglas firs. After mid-October, the water's too cold for a long swim here. There's even rope swing to drop you into the lake, if you don't mind a scary plunge downward, then up, before you let go!
Also on this day trip, we walked to the Bay Area's only natural year-round waterfalls. All the others dry up during the summer/fall dry season. Miraculously, these three waterfalls-- the third one plunges over a 40-foot cliff onto the beach-- gushed forth as always.
Only two people joined me on this magnificent sunny Columbus Day holiday, and at first I wondered why so few. There weren't many other people on this usually-popular trail either. Then suddenly it was clear: Hardly anyone gets a Columbus Day holiday anymore! It's a real shame, since early October has some of the Bay Area's best weather for swimming-- it's much sunnier and warmer on the coast than summer. We're planning to go back to this lake and the waterfalls in late June, and July as part of our Nature Camp at Point Reyes, and maybe once more in late September/early October-- on a weekend.
June 3, 2007
Pathfinding Trip to Big Sur a Big Success!
We headed south from San Francisco to the Salinas Valley, then west into the vast Hunter-Liggett Military Reservation, a timeless landscape of oaks and rolling hills that is unchanged since the days of Mission San Antonio-- which has been restored to its glory days of two centuries ago, and sits in a valley near the center of the base.
San Antonio is the only Spanish mission in California that's surrounded by natural open space, so visitors can really see what life was like here. All the others have long since been enveloped by cities and towns.
After a stop at the mission, we continued west, stopping only long enough to take a photo of a deserted military tank in an open field. Big mistake! A Military Police SUV was on us in seconds, demanding our film. "It says right there on the permit, no pictures!" But it was a digital camera, so the MP let us keep it.
We entered the Los Padres National Forest, crested the steep Santa Lucia Range in brilliant sunlight, and descended to the fog-shrouded coast, camping among the redwoods at Limekiln State Park. True to its name, the park preserves rusted old kilns that were used to make cement from limestone more than a century ago.
The next day we went north, stopping at waterfalls, beaches, and more state parks along this dramatic coastline. Leaving Big Sur, we passed through Monterey, with its world-famous (and justly so!) aquarium, which showcases hundreds of species of marine life, from sea otters to nudibranchs (sea slugs). This aquarium is a must-see for visitors, so it will be part of our 2008 tour!
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