Tidepooling at the Fitzgerald Marine Preserve

Usually minus tides occur too early in the morning or when it is dark. Today, however, there was a -1.2 tide at 3:50 pm. The sky was sunny and the temperature was mild, so I headed over the hill to the James Fitzgerald Marine Reserve at Moss Beach, north of Half Moon Bay. I took along the polaroid underwater housing for my Canon camera that I bought for snorkeling in the Caribbean last month. That way I was able to take pictures underwater in the tide pools.

A large rocky reef exposed at low tide makes this 3-mile long beach one of the best places in California to enjoy an amazing diversity of intertidal marine life.  Check a tide table on the internet and head for this reserve when the tide is low, preferably in the minus range. Tide pool walks are conducted at low tide by rangers and docents. Remember that it is illegal to remove or disturb marine life or to disturb the harbor seals that hang out on the offshore rocks.

TO GET THERE... take Highway 1 to the town of Moss Beach and turn west on California Avenue. It's about 10 miles south of Pacifica and 6.3 miles north of Highway 92.

Ano Nuevo State Park After Hours Ramble

My former student and Ano Nuevo docent, Sarah Mendel, lead a select group on an after hours walk to see the elephant seals at Ano Nuevo State Park on the southern San Mateo County coast.

Though some elephant  seals can be seen at the park all years, it is most popular from December through March when a large number of the pinnipeds show up for for mating and bearing young. To protect the enormous mammals, and the people who come to see them, the wildlife protection area of the park is open only through naturalist guided walks at that time of year.

In addition to seals, we also saw some sea otters bobbing in the ocean on the south side of the peninsula.

Male elephant seals arrive in early December to establish a breeding hierarchy and are followed in late Decmber by the females, who join the harems of the dominant males.  Bull elephant seals are enormous, reaching lengths of 16 feet  and weighing close to 2.5 tons. Females are much smaller, at 1,200 - 2,000 pounds.  These animals,  the largest members of the seal family, seem awkward on land, but they are excellent swimmer,  able to stay at sea for 8 months out of the year and dive as deep as 5,000 feet.

TO GET THERE... The park entrance is west of Highway 1 about 19 miles north of Santa Cruz and about 23 miles south of Half Moon Bay.

Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve

Sunshine and warm weather was the perfect setting yesterday for the final field trip for my Peninsula Parks & Trails class with the College of San Mateo.

We met at the Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve parking lot near the intersection of Skyline Boulevard and Alpine Road. We started our 5.5 mile saunter with a third of a mile loop around Alpine Pond in adjacent Skyline Ridge Open Space. We paused at the Ohlone mortar stone where women pounded acorns centuries ago.

After returning to the Russian Ridge parking lot, we headed north (uphill) on the Bay Area Ridge Trail and then made a left turn on the Ancient Oaks Trail. We saw numerous leafless buckeye trees displaying their fruit. Along the way some of us climbed an ancient canyon live oak beside the trail. Turning right on the Charquin Trail, we enjoyed the bright yellow fall foliage of big leaf maple trees. Along the Hawk Ridge Trail we stopped for lunch near two dead Douglas fir trees riddled with holes used by acorn woodpeckers to store acorns. Nearly every hole contained an acorn, and we saw several woodpeckers at work on their acorn cache.

After lunch we ascended the ridge to the Bay Area Ridge Trail and then headed south. We stopped to view Mindego Hill to the west. This hill is now part of Russian Ridge Open Space, and is expected to be open to the public next year. The high point of our hike was the summit of  2,572-foot

Borel Hill, named for nineteenth century banker Antoine Borel, a Swiss immigrant who once owned this property. From the summit, which is the highest named point in San Mateo County, we could see north to Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, east to San Francisco Bay and Mount Diablo, south to Mount Umunhum, and west to the Pacific Ocean. It was a perfect day for ridge top vistas.

TO GET THERE...from Highway 280, take Page Mill Road west (uphill) and look for the
Russian Ridge parking lot on the right just beyond Skyline Boulevard.

Juvenile Elephant Seals at Ano Nuevo State Park

Only the most intrepid or optimistic of my De Anza College students showed up as a steady rain fell on the Ano Nuevo State Park parking lot yesterday morning. Undaunted by the weather we started our outing with a stop at the visitors center museum in the old dairy barn. From there we headed west toward the point.

Our optimism was soon rewarded as the rain stopped and blue sky and sunshine prevailed for the rest of the day. Our first stop was the reservoir which sits in the little rift valley along the Frijoles Fault. We were surprised to find a few red Indian paintbrush still in bloom. We headed up a sand dune and paused to examine an ancient Indian shell mound left by the Quiroste band of Ohlone Indians centuries ago.  Further on we saw several deer.

At North Point we saw hundreds of juvenile elephant seals lounging on the beach, and a few pre-pubescent males practice battling for dominance. These youngsters arrive at this time of year to molt and build bone density when they have the beach to themselves before the mature bulls arrive in December. A knowledgeable docent on the viewing platform educated us about the life cycle of these amazing seals. With binoculars we were able to see sea lions on the island and a mother sea otter with her baby. Brown pelicans were common.

Because eating isn't allowed in the natural preserve part of the park, we headed to Cove Beach, just south of the reservoir, for a late lunch. Here you can observe the abrupt change in rock in the sea cliff where it is bisected by the Frijole Fault. After lunch we enjoyed bay nut brownies and then headed back to the parking lot.

TO GET THERE... The main entrance is on the west side of Highway 1 about 19 miles north of Santa Cruz and about 23 miles south of Half Moon Bay.

Hiking the Coast at Wilder Ranch State Park

Despite showers the previous night, the weather was ideal for a one-way hike of about 4.7 miles along the spectacular coastal bluffs between Four Mile Beach and the Cultural Preserve at Wilder Ranch State Park.

To avoid the $10.00 park entrance fee, my class met at the parking area along Highway 1 just south of the park entrance. We then organized car pools to take us about two miles north to our trail head at the access to Four Mile Beach. This parking lot is on the left (west) side of Highway 1 just past a green farmhouse (also on the west side of the highway).

From there we walked downhill to Four Mile Beach. There are two outhouses just before reaching the beach. We then ascended to the top of the coastal bluff and headed south on the Ohlone Bluff Trail. On the right are spectacular views of the the churning Pacific smashing into the rocky coast. Though the weather was calm, the ocean was quite agitated, probably because of a storm far out at sea. To the left we saw great fields of Brussels sprouts and artichokes. We took a steep shortcut across Three Mile Beach, where we found a broken surfboard, and then continued on to Strawberry Beach, where we had lunch.

After lunch we continued south, pausing to watch harbor seals bobbing in the waves. We then took another shortcut trail across Sand Plant Beach and on to Fern Grotto, which is one of the highlights of the hike. The Grotto is a sea cave that has been uplifted by tectonic forces and watered by a perpetually dripping spring that keeps a lush garden of hanging ferns looking fresh and green all year. One of our group went hundreds of feet back into the cave, where it is quite dark.

We enjoyed many more spectacular scenes of precipitous cliffs plunging into pounding surf  as we finished up the Ohlone Bluff Trail and then took the Old Cove Landing Trail to the Wilder Ranch buildings. I timed this hike to correspond with the annual Harvest Festival at the Cultural Preserve part of the park, which includes a cluster of historical building, including two nineteenth century ranch houses, an adobe built in 1839 by the first family to farm here, a horse barn, a cow barn, a workshop, and a garage that housed the first gasoline powered automobile in Santa Cruz County. My favorite exhibit is the workshop, with its many tools run by belts powered by Pelton Water Wheels. Only on special occasions like the Harvest Festival can you see this workshop come to life.

TO GET THERE... The main entrance is along Highway 1 about 2 miles northwest of Santa Cruz and 42 miles south of Half Moon Bay.

A Tour of the San Andreas Fault

Twenty-five years and one day after the Loma Prieta Earthquake, my De Anza College class toured a section of the San Andreas Fault in Monte Bello and Los Trancos Open Space Preserves.

We started at the Monte Bello Open Space Preserve parking lot on Page Mill Road. From there we followed the Stevens Creek Nature Trail into the oak and bay woodlands along the headwaters of Stevens Creek. We paused to sample berries from two madrone trees with an abundance of fruit. Near the junction with the Canyon Trail we noted a proliferation of galls on an old white oak.

We then headed north on the Canyon Trail, which involved a steep uphill climb in places. We caught our breaths while admiring a large artists pallet fungus on a bay tree. Lunchtime occurred at exactly the right time to stop at a large sag pond on the San Andreas Fault. This pond, which was open water when I first visited in the late 1970's, is now filled with cattails.

After lunch we hiked north on the Canyon Trail and then crossed Page Mill Road into Los Trancos Open Space Preserve. From there we toured the San Andreas Fault Trail, which loops through some evidence of fault movement during the giant 1906 earthquake. We saw benches, pressure ridges, a displaced fence, and two oak trees that were knocked onto their sides by the quake but sent up vertical shoots. The highlight was the sight of a magnificent buck and doe. Being the rutting season, they were inseparable.

TO GET THERE... the main parking lot is on Page Mill Road about 7 miles west from Highway 280 and 1.4 miles east from Skyline Boulevard.

Pescadero Creek County Park from the Wurr Road Entrance

My College of San Mateo class enjoyed a 5.7-mile loop hike through the redwoods in the western part of Pescadero Creek County Park. From Skylonda we carpooled to the Hoffman Flat Trailhead on Wurr Road, which is just south of Pescadero Road and just east of San Mateo County Memorial Park.

From the trailhead we hiked east on the Old Haul Road, which was once used to haul redwood logs long before San Mateo County acquired the land. We then headed north on the Pomponio Trail, which took us across Pescadero Creek. Because there is no bridge across the creek, this route is only feasible during the dry season. Along the way I turned over a log and found a yellow-eyed salamander. The trail passes through a large grassy meadow called Worley Flat and through a forest of coast live oak. We continued on the Pomponio Trail to the Parke Gulch Trail, which passes a massive three-trunk old-growth redwood that was hollowed out by fire over the centuries. We ate lunch beneath this magnificent tree.

After lunch we paused at one of the campsites at the Shaw Flat Trail Camp. From there, we walked south on the Shaw Flat Trail, where some of us climbed into another fire-hollowed giant redwood, and then made our second crossing of Pescadero Creek. Though I encouraged hike participants to bring water shoes or sandals, they were not necessary this year because of the low water level. We saw lots of salmon or steelhead fry in the pools along the creek bed.

From the Shaw Flat Trail we took the Old Haul Road 1.8 miles back to the trail head. Across from the trail head parking lot is a large old pear tree bearing lots of fruit. I used my hiking stick to knock pears to the ground. Though they look rather knobby and unappealing on the outside, these pears are sweet juicy, and delicious

.

TO GET THERE... From Skyline Boulevard at Skylonda, take La Honda Road (Highway 84) west, Just beyond the town of La Honda, turn left on Pescadero Road. Turn left on Wurr Road and continue south about a third of a mile to the parking lot. Wurr Road is just beyond Camp Loma Mar. If you pass the entrance to San Mateo County Memorial Park you have gone too far..