California — Small animals?

Sunday, 16 September 2012

I spent yesterday on airplanes, getting soft and fat. Today is to get outdoors, get a little exercise. I thought I might drive up Page Mill road to Montebello open space preserve and hike at least the short Stevens Canyon — Skyline open space loop from there, but the gas gauge was a little low. Also, I’m late getting started (almost 9:30 by the time I was on the trail), and rather than spend time driving, I’d prefer to leave the car and hike.

So I went to Arastradero open space preserve instead. I can hike up to Foothills park, then on into Los Trancos open space preserve, which connects to Montebello. I thought Alpine pond at Skyline and Alpine road might be a good destination: drinking water there, and the possibility of small animals in and around the pond.

I spotted the first small animal of the day before leaving Arastradero. The multiple black dots make it hard to tell where the eyes are. Do you suppose that’s a survival trait?

Because this was an ad hoc adaptation, I didn’t have trail maps. I picked up the Arastradero map at the kiosk, but that isn’t the problem. I have rarely, maybe never, gone into Foothills park from here, and ended up wasting significant time and distance getting that transition sorted out.

The higher elevations are okay; I have been here before. Even so, it was apparent that going to Alpine pond would be a stretch, and I’m not sure there’s a direct trail from Montebello anyway. If I need to take the roundabout trail, there is certainly not enough time.

When I reached the Montebello parking area, I got the high country trail map and confirmed that there was no direct trail; it was also 1:15, so I needed to consider the time it would take getting back. I should be smarter on the return trip, but still, there could be a false turning or two. So I turned back. It’s enough for one day, anyway: it turned out to be 19.6 miles, 3000 vertical feet.

Too bad I can’t refill the water bottle, but I still have a little left; I know there’s water at Foothills park, and I won’t need as much going down anyway.

When I got back into the upper reaches of Foothills park, I thought I would take Pony Tracks fire road down, rather than the trail route I had taken on the way up. I thought Pony Tracks would intersect the trail some distance down, and I could turn off onto the trail when I got there. Just a way to avoid backtracking.

Wrong. It was a steep descent and the fire road ended at Page Mill road. I recognize that part of the road: it’s a hard right turn, steep going in, and then with increasing steepness, the one most dangerous curve for a bicycle. I still sweat when I remember the first time I went through there, not having braked enough in advance…. I ended up on the left side of the road, thanking my lucky stars that there was no oncoming traffic.

But because I know the road, I also know that walking along the road is a really poor idea. I didn’t want to go back up Pony Tracks fire road to the place where I should have turned off. The alternative was a short spur called the Parks fire road, which ended at a water tank. Could there be a way downhill beyond the water tank?

I worked my way around the chainlink fence to check it out. There is an electrical line going downhill, probably also a water line. Both run perpendicular to the contours: the steepest possible route. But there was at least something of an access — I will not call it a trail.

What were the risks? No big trees could fall across the alleged path, because it was just bush. Probably the biggest thing would be the risk of  a heavy growth of poison oak, too much to get around. Of course, there was also a good chance of falling on this very steep grade, but that’s not too much of a concern.

And fall I did, three times. But as expected, it was pretty minor. Hardly any blood, and my tetanus shots are up to date.

The untrail does not descend to a ridge where I could pick up a real trail; it actually descends to the top of Wild Horse valley. When I finally got there, I found a picnic site — with drinking water. I knew there had to be something good about this.

Note to self: Self, don’t ever do that again.

Taking Pony Tracks fire road down was a bad idea, but not quite stupid. Not stupid, not within the meaning of the act. Stupid would have been risking serious injury or worse, or risking getting lost or benighted.

I drank as much as I could, and refilled the bottle. Further down, I went around Lake Boronda, hoping for small animals to photograph. There were a few dragonflies, but they didn’t want to pose for pictures. Along the shore of the lake, two more drinking fountains, and I took full advantage of them. Much better!

Back over Bobcat point and down into Arastradero. It was past beer time, and I was stepping right along, when lo and behold, a ringneck snake! Cool!

Ringnecks are fast and agile and don’t like to pose for pictures. Fortunately, this one was out in the middle of the fire road, and I was able to go around and head it off whenever it broke for the underbrush. I guesstimated at 2/3 overexposure, but didn’t have time to calibrate the results. I think a full stop of overexposure would have been better. A dozen shots, of which I think I’ll keep these two.

Both of today’s small animals were in Arastradero preserve. Mike would point out that I didn’t need to do the 15 miles in between.

Home to plunge the feet into a bucket of ice water. As they say, if you can walk away from it, it’s a good hike.

It’s wildflower season!

2012 May 6

Well, no, this isn’t a wildflower.

It’s one of two ringneck snakes I saw on my 20-mile Saturday hike. Question: how can it be a ringneck snake when snakes have no necks?

Notice the bright orange underbelly.

Here’s the venue, as seen just before reaching the parking lot on the return trip. The hike starts at Montebello open space preserve, whose parking lot is just off the picture to the left, goes down Stevens Canyon, which is the low area to the right (looking down the San Andreas rift zone, by the way), climbs out to Saratoga Summit and returns on the high country to the right of the picture.

And a great day it was for wildflowers. The bees agree!

Understand, of course, that wildflower viewing is a matter of appreciating the minuscule! Some of these are less than half a centimeter across, and I only saw a lot of the detail after I put the fotos up on the big screen at home.

For example, the serrated edges. You  — well, certainly I — would never have noticed that without a close-up foto.

I’m not sure this qualifies as a wildflower, but it certainly illustrates, along with the one below, that they don’t have to be colourful to be beautiful.

This is one of my favourites, the stamen peeking out from behind the petals!

Cluster flowers often appear to be just patches of (in this case) white. You usually don’t see the detail.

And these fluffy pink little guys — who would ever have guessed that they have fuzzy little clown faces?

Again, we often view something like this as a single large (2 cm or so) patch of colour, with a different-coloured center. But look at the detail in the center!

We need to be careful photographing these flowers — they’re poison oak. And speaking of oak, not the poison kind…

On Sunday, Jacky and I went to Edgewood park, which is renowned for its spring wildflowers, and found a few more to photograph.

Another California poppy, again host to an insect, some sort of leafhopper.

This one would be hard pressed to span half a centimeter!

And here’s a Las Vegas starburst that you would only think was dust until you looked closely.

A really beautiful time of year.