habitat ~ 02/16/14 ~ Los Padres Dam

Los Padres Dam

February 16, 2014

The Los Padres Dam along the Carmel River is owned by California American Water (CalAm) and is one of several trailheads to the Ventana Wilderness of the Los Padres National Forest.  While it's a popular backpacking destination, I don't particularly have any desire to go myself: it's drier than I prefer; there are way too many mosquitoes, ticks, and poison oak; and quite frankly, some of the die-hard Big Sur folks make me a little nervous.  We've only ever done the Carmel River Trail for very enjoyable short day hikes.  I'll admit I'm woefully ignorant of the heated water politics surrounding the Carmel River, and it's always in the local news.  CalAm is currently removing the San Clemente Dam located downstream.

ps - Does anyone know what causes the orange colored seepage?  Iron bacteria?

habitat ~ 10/14/12 ~ Garland Ranch - Garzas Creek

Garland Ranch Regional Park - Garzas Creek

October 14, 2012

After seeing the gorgeous color change of the bigleaf maples up at Memorial Park a couple days earlier, I wanted to check how the seasonal progression was doing closer to home.  We heard there was only a sprinkling of rain here from the thunderstorm that passed through. Garzas Creek is the one place I particularly associate with native autumn colors from bigleaf maples and CA sycamores. It's 12 miles inland and often has 10-20 °F temperature extremes than at home on the Bay.  It was a bit chilly when we started our hike, and then it got uncomfortably toasty by lunchtime.  What surprised us initially was seeing all the evergreen oaks had been completely, and I mean completely, defoliated by CA oak moths.  It was eerie walking through a coastal CA oak forest with only grey bare branches, twigs, and dried grasses.  If it weren't so warm, I would have thought I was somewhere in February after a winter of regular freezing and snow.  The redwoods and CA bay trees were very easy to spot in the distance.  While the maples had pretty much lost all of their leaves, the sycamores were still quite green.  I wonder if there are different mechanisms for color change and leaf fall between the two tree spp.  Even though the foot bridges won't be taken out for another 2-3 weeks, they weren't necessary. Garzas Creek was bone dry in most places and only had a couple standing pools of water in others. The whole landscape felt very dry and somewhat flat of color to me.  Compare these pictures with those we took November 19, 2011 and November 11, 2010.  If we have more rain in the next 4-5 weeks, I wonder if the ferns and moss will show themselves.  What's unusual about our area is that winter usually signals a time of new green growth.  October is definitely a time of transition.

habitat ~ 11/19/11 ~ Garland Ranch - Garzas Creek

Garland Ranch Regional Park - Garzas Creek
November 19, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving! Garzas Creek is going to become my must-do pre-Thanksgiving hike. It's one of the only places around Monterey that has large, native, crunchy, deciduous leaves to tromp through and feels almost like the autumn most people expect in North America. The area along the creek is absolutely gorgeous!

Andy is training for a 50K trail run, so he sped off while I casually took a short loop. We planned to meet up at our favorite restaurant Jeffrey's at Carmel Mid-Valley for lunch. Thanks to a couple of hikers with a dog that liked to jump on me (I had muddy footprints all over me!), I veered off to the redwood trail to avoid them. I worried I wouldn't get back in time to meet Andy, but I am so glad I took this new-to-me trail. The trail loops back to the creek for some of the most scenic spots.

As the sign says, the seasonal foot bridges were taken out the Monday before my hike. I asked a fellow if the creek was passable. He was confident that it could be crossed at the 4 intersections along the trail. Note to self: do not take the advice of a 6 foot tall man with walking sticks if a creek is passable. While I love rock hopping, it helps if you don't have muddy shoes and aren't needing to pass over wet rocks. I managed just fine once I found a couple large sticks to help me balance. After my very grouchy previous week, this hike really helped cheer me up. It was food for the soul, and I am thankful for places like this.

habitat ~ 11/11/10 ~ Garland Ranch - Garzas Creek

Garland Ranch Regional Park - Garzas Creek

November 11, 2010

Showing the end of autumn color around these parts. Hey, it's California on the coast. I've been very tempted to take pictures of garden trees in town with their bright reds, oranges, and yellows, but that wouldn't feel honest for a nature blog. The best native show, besides poison-oak, comes from the bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) and western sycamore (Platanus racemosa) with their massive yellow-orange crunchy leaves now nourishing the ground. Once we get a little more rain in the next month, everything will start turning bright spring green in time for Christmas. For a great blog post on native California fall color, check out Town Mouse and Country Mouse and for a series of California fall color links, check out Natural History Wanderings.

In case you missed it, I linked to Las Pilitas Nursery in the common name above. Be sure to read to the end of the description. Whoever writes their descriptions has a healthy sense of humor. My favorite is still their description of the California wild rose.

ps 11/20/11 - Andy took these pictures during one of his trail runs. I also added western sycamore above.