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April 26, 2007

Mt. Tamalpais wildflower walk - Saturday June 2nd

Mt. Tam wildflower walk - Saturday, June 2nd. Well this is going to be a tasty little hike. We'll begin in the redwoods of Cataract Canyon on the North side of Mt. Tam, hike along the coastal bluffs of the Bolinas Ridge and end our hike with frosty pitchers of beer on a deck overlooking muir woods at the best-view-in-the-world pub, the fabulous german Tourist Club.

Hmmmm, I spent almost half of my intro paragraph talking about beer and the tourist club. I have no shame, and I suppose that is a correct representation of my priorities, but the hike itself will be the real treat. I love the micro-climate ecosystems of Mt. Tam, and we'll be passing through a veritable greatest hits of the Sleeping Lady's extensive catalog - redwood forests, oak/bay woodlands, serpentine pygmy forest, wildflower meadows, dramatic coastal bluffs, chaparral - do I need to go on? I'm probably overselling this hike and we're going to end up with more people wanting to go than we can take, but I'm in love with this mountain so what am I supposed to say? Your trip leader is a opinionated misanthrope (there, that should scare some people away)and finds an unhealthy amount of sustenence and solace in his relationships with wild plants, so there will be lots of talking about native plants, herbal medicine, wild foods, ecology etc ... He also has the unfortunate habit of lapsing into referring to himself in the third person in his blog entries for no apparent reason. Can a love of wild plants heal this person and make him normal? Stay tuned.

How, When, Where. I've mapped this out in my head, but I have to do a little research to plan out our exact route, meeting spot etc ... I don't have all the details yet, but it will be about a 8-10 mile hike starting at 10am on Saturday, June 2. I will email details the week before the hike to the folks who have signed up for this trip. Please note that we have to limit this hike to 15 people in order to keep it manageable, and I have a feeling this is going to be a popular trip, so sign up early if you want to go by emailing me hall@juniperridge.com. See you there!

Posted by juniperridge at 9:02 PM | Comments (0)

April 23, 2007

Wildflowers in the rain on Mt. Diablo

As I sat in my car at Mt. Diablo's Mitchell Canyon parking lot for the first ever Juniper Ridge native plant walk with the heater on and the rain pummeling my windshield, I was ready to call it quits. I'm kind of a wussish, fair-weather hiker and would have pitched it were it not for the intrepid and dedicated group that showed bright and eager and ready to hit the trail, so off we went ...





So here we are at the beginning of the hike with yours truly babbling about Clematis. Clematis is a great anti-migraine herb for a certain kind of migraine caused by cerebral-spinal fluid pressure build-up. It doesn't work for every kind of migraine, but when it works it's just the thing.





Camoflaged dragonfly





This flower, Indian Warrior, is one of the classic early bloomers of the Bay Area and is quite common all over Mt. Diablo. It's also one of the great smoking herbs of the West - a legal high that isn't trippy, just relaxing and mellow. Oh do I sound to hippie-ish? I have two sides to me in my love of plants - part of me is hippie-dippie-do-through-and-through and wants to just crawl around in the bushes and eat and drink plants, and sleep off the trail and dream plant dreams - and part of me is apallingly nerdy in that way that unfortunate way that white boys seem particularly adept at (think dungeons and dragons or baseball cards). The slim rains this winter produced a relatively light wildflower bloom on these normally color-laden hillsides, but to honor my nerdier tendencies here is a partial list of the wildflowers we saw ...

Ithurial's Spear (Triteleia laxa)
Blue Dicks (Dicholostemma spp.)
Johnny Jump-Up (Viola spp.)
Blue Eyed Grass (Sisyrinchium bellum)
Monkeyflower (Mimulus spp.)
Wind Poppy (Stylomecon heterophylla)
Black Sage (Salvia mellifera)
Diablo Fairy Lanterns (Calochortus pulchellus)(thanks to Vicki for spotting this one - we almost walked by one of the coolest wildflowers of the day)
Serrated Onion (Allium serra)
Checker Lily (Fritillaria affinis)
Goldenbush (Ericameria linearifolia)
Lupine (Lupinus spp.)
Scarlet Larkspur (Delphinium nudicale)
Soap Root (Chlorogalum pomeridianum)
Death Camas (Zigadenus fremontii)
Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum)
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
Pearly Everlasting (Gnaphalium californicum)
Yerba Santa (Eridictyon californicum)
Miner's lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata)
Buck Brush (Ceanothus cuneatus)
Fiddleneck (Amsinckia menziesii)
California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica)
California Buttercup (Ranunculus californica)
Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja spp.)
Indian Warrior (Pedicularis densiflorus)
Royal Larkspur (Delphinium variegatum)
Shooting Star (Dodecatheon hendersonii)
Owl's Clover (Castilleja exserta)
Chinese Houses (Collinsia heterophylla)
Blue Witch (Solanum umbelliferum)
Clematis (Clematis ligustifolia)
Cleavers (Gallium sp.)
Wallflower (Erysimum spp.)
Hops (Ptalea sp.)

There, I feel so much better!

I love this photo! Kellan, 16 years old with the sullen expression on the right, is so hating life - "dude what the hell am I doing here with my parents on a Saturday in the rain?"





OK this is when the rain and hail really started coming down. Everyone was getting soaked at this point, and we basically forgot all about the wildflowers and started walking as quickly as we could back towards our warm cars. I remember seeing some interesting wildflowers and thinking "oh there's scarlet larkspur, there's silver lupine" but I couldn't stop to point them out because the wind was howling and the rain and hail was flying sideways pelting me in the face. I was thinking to myself that everyone was probably regretting the moment they left their warm bed that morning, but as we descended down the ridge, hypothermia started to set in, and we all started giggling and laughing for no reason other than that it seemed fun to be getting wet. When I was growing up in the Northwest, I remember playing in the rain and getting soaked, and rolling around in the mud and it was just like that- I felt like a kid again and was having ridiculous amounts of fun.





Taking advantage of a break in the rain.



Hall, Penny, Craig, Dave, Alli, Vicki, Tom


And here we are at the end of the hike, soaked and happy. Thanks so much to all of you folks - that was such a fun day! I feel so inspired to do more trips like this. Maybe we can do a short backpacking trip in the Sierra next year. Anyways, I had tons of fun and am eagerly looking forward to our next wildflower walk on Mt. Tam in June - I will be posting the details here soon and hope to see all of you there!

Posted by juniperridge at 8:45 PM | Comments (0)