Looking High and Low: Pinnacles National Park

High Peaks view, Pinnacles National Park

I think one is first drawn to the trails of Pinnacles for the high drama. It is especially gratifying to visit with those that have never been before---to witness the inevitable transition to discovery of the natural magic that lies within our nearest (and newest) National Park. Pinnacles unveils itself to its guests with style. My hiking buddy and Pinnacles initiate for this trip is Sarah, friend and former colleague from the sea otter days in SLO. Since this is her first visit, I insist that a trip to the High Peaks is in order, although I'm quite sure getting there will kick my butt about 25 years harder than hers. Sarah makes a fine substitute for Harry,who has to sit this one out---this National Park is particularly inhospitable to dogs.

Sarah on the wildflower rich Junction Canyon Trail 

Our mission, besides introducing Sarah to the park, is maximum wildflower exposure and we come armed with trail choice recommendations from the Pinnacles' biologist which include not only the most spectacular flowers and a first timer's must see spots, but strategies for navigating the weekend crowds. This will be my first time accessing the park from the West Entrance via Soledad---which has mercifully changed its city catch phrase from "It's happening in Soledad" (I'm pretty sure that I don't want to know what "it" is or why it's happening next to a correctional facility) to the much less arguable, "Gateway to the Pinnacles". You chose wisely, Soledad city council.

The transition: see story here. Photo KSBW

We arrive at the West Entrance visitor's center before 9 and it's not yet open (probably because the ranger was stuck behind me up the very narrow entrance road to the park), so we self pay the entrance fee of $10, an incredible bargain that allows access for 7 days. Then we move on to the trail head at the Chaparral Ranger Station  where the parking lot is already sparsely occupied by other early-start hikers wishing to make the summit in the cool air before noon. Plenty of water? Check. Snacks? Check. Trail Map? Check. Headlamps? Doh! And we head up the Juniper Canyon Trail on our way to the High Peaks.

We don't have to wait long for flowers and are knee deep in Clarkia and Delphinium within minutes. It was adrift in this intoxicating sea of pinks and purples, that I became aware of two types of hikers on the trail that morning: those who are goal oriented and those who are detail oriented. I suspect every individual is a little of both (unless the hiker is my sister Rebecca who will joyfully sacrifice the goal for the details) but, while I definitely want to get to the summit some time today, I refuse to do so at the expense of the Venus thistle or the blister beetle. Contributing to my baseline dawdling are two related factors: my increasing obsession with documenting wildlife observations photographically for iNaturalist (affectionately, iNat), and this day being Day 2 of a Global Bioblitz (May 15-25) for which iNat users and other nature enthusiasts all over the world are documenting biodiversity (see the results here). So, I'm taking my time and recording as many species as possible. Sarah, who has also brought her camera, is adopting this pace, at least in part, by association. But I think it can grow on you; Or wear on you; One of the two.

The elegant Clarkia, Clarkia unguiculata

Larkspur violet against a pink Clarkia back drop

Speckled Clarkia, Clarkia cylindrica

The redundantly named butterfly mariposa lily, Calochortus venustus

Variable checkerspot, Euphydryas chalcedona, nectaring on the  Venus
thistle, Cirsium occidentale var. venustum, one of our few native thistles

Lytta blister beetles devouring a larkspur blossom

And so we slowly wander, awash in wonder, while the summit seekers speed past. In one sunny spot in the trail, the brilliant blue Echo Azure butterflies cluster, perhaps on a needed patch of mineral. Movement transforms their pale grey underwing, visible as they perch, to a flurry of violet---the color for which they are named. Hiker after hiker walks by, their very passage agitating mini cyclones of blue---"How can they not look stop to look at this?!" I ask Sarah. But I'm sure they are wondering as they pass, "How can they not hurry to the top?" 

Echo azure blues, Celastrina echo, showing their grey side in the trail

A glimpse of the azure side

Even with our dawdling, we make good time to the junction with the High Peaks trail and the road to the "Steep and Narrows", so nicknamed because of these (accurate) warning signs:

It is appropriate to be filled with gratitude to those that built this particular stretch of trail (Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933), making passable to the mere hiker what may have been left to the mountaineers. 

As we pass through the High Peaks, another hiker enthusiastically informs us that there is a condor perched just ahead and another soaring in the canyon below. Though hopeful, perhaps it is the biologists in us that consider it likely the condor will turn out to be a turkey vulture---in much the way a stranded sea otter turns out to be a harbor seal. What can I say? Ya get skeptical. We were wrong:

Pinnacles is one of a handful of release sites for captive bred California condors,
one of the mightiest(and most imperiled) birds in the world.

Here's a turkey vulture for comparison---I'll add insult to injury by making the picture smaller.

Even in the jagged, dramatic landscape of the High Peaks, born of geological forces volcanic, tectonic and climatic, one can look low and find beauty.

Dudleya cymosa and lichen decorate a fissure in the rhyolite wall

But it sure doesn't hurt to look high...

These monolithic vistas are Pinnacles' gift-wrapped surprise. All around they are cloaked in the familiarly gentle, chaparral dressed peaks of the California coast---unveiled as you follow the trail deeper into her lofty heart. To be here is to feel simultaneously at home (I know these plants and animals...) and away (...but what world is this?), to feel comfort and awe in the same moment. That kind of magic is the stuff of both the thistle and peak.

After snacks and a rest on a rocky ledge with a view suitable for a condor, we take the aptly named Tunnel Trail back to Juniper Canyon. As we began our descent we were overtaken by a lone boy scout who had missed a critical trial junction on his way to the summit and had lost his troop. "Is this the trail to the summit?" he asked, red-faced with exertion. "You're heading down the west side---you missed the High Peaks junction...We passed your troop up top." He would have been in for a major bummer if he hadn't run into us. Aren't boy scouts trained to stay in herds?

Tunnel Trail: "Go towards the light, boyscout..."

Full disclosure: there are a number of drawbacks to dawdling over details on the trail. You may get a better look at some of the flora and fauna than the speed hikers, but there are some things that you will miss simply because you have allowed others to go ahead and flush them from the trail. Sarah and I, most unfortunately, did not see any of Pinnacles' lovely reptiles this day and we saw few birds. Sometimes being first helps. As we found on our supplementary hike of the Balconies Cave Loop, dawdling also allows you to be overtaken by large groups of shrieking 5-year-old girls. 

There is always an unsettling notion when scrambling though the talus caves at Pinnacles, that these are passages built by the tumbling of massive boulders into canyons from the cliffs above. The caves are the offspring of deadly avalanches and we are teetering on the edge of the San Andreas Fault. Best not to think about it too much while gazing at the boulder ceiling overhead.

The San Andreas Fault has left Pinnacles sister half
back in southern California. Image NPS

Above the caves

And inside--this is the Bear Gulch Cave in April of 2011

As we approached the Balconies Cave, I realized that I had not told Sarah to bring the necessary head lamp. Oops. Fortunately, all iPhone users come equipped with flashlights---the Swiss army tool of the digital age. We have the CCC to thank once again for building the trails through the caves, a pretty descent scrabble up,down and under boulders in some places. At least one bump of the head is inevitable. Some spots are so low as to make passage with a backpack challenging, and a pack bearer can find themselves wedged if they don't limbo quite low enough---a feature that might be troubling for the infant in a baby backpack we spot just heading in as we exit. "Should we have warned her mum?"

It was bumper to bumper hikers going through Balconies on this Saturday afternoon. Misanthrope that I am, I'd much prefer to navigate these passages in lighter traffic. If you're a mysophobe, consider bringing hand sanitizer as you will be squeezing through where many have squeezed before. This is probably only one on a long list of phobias that you might want to address before visiting the caves.

From the east side you can access the beautiful Bear Gulch Caves (my favorite), but only when they are not being used by Townsend's big-eared bats. During pupping season, bats are give the right of way and exclusive access so be sure to check the Pinnacle NP website for cave status if you are especially keen to explore them on your visit. Since I am a chirophile (and not a chirophobe---add this to the list), I am drawn to the idea of seeing and hearing bats. I highly recommend a night hike to the Bear Gulch Reservoir if you are similarly enamored.

And so we are back in the west side parking lot and loading into Emmy (who is a good 200 degrees inside). Time to stretch the muscles and make a stop in Soledad for ice cream (which I should have applied to my quads instead of my belly). The next day I send Sarah a text message:

G: "How are your quads feeling today?" 

S:"They are fine....I've been working out a lot...."

Oh shut up.

Happiness at the High Peaks

Note: Thanks, Sarah for being great company on this hike and for not complaining for a moment about my dawdling. Thanks to Pinnacles Biologist Paul for trail advice and taking the time to confirm many of my iNat IDs. Readers can see all of my wildlife observations from Pinnacles National Park by clicking my iNaturalist link to the right. You may have to scroll down a bit as the day of our visit (May 16) marked the seconds day of a Global Bioblitz.

By The Wind

Look deeply into Velella for the secrets of the wind

The wind and I have not been friends. For thirteen years of sea otter tracking it pushed at me from the cold northwest, shaking my spotting scope, churning up the seas, awakening sleeping otters, chilling me to my bones and testing my endurance for pushing back. I could find little room in my heart to love the wind. 

Wind blown otter tracker, Mary Ramirez at San Nicolas Island

Harry's ears are my wind gauge: tracking otters at Point Pinos

It is a long road back to friendship---perhaps those of you who have not had to bear the full force day after day cannot understand. I've felt a bit like an abused partner, blown and beaten then soothed with the gentle apology in a calm whisper as the gusts lie down at dusk. That cycle of one-sided anger and blame has brewed in me for over a decade, churning into its own vortex of hatred for one of Earth's great forces, The winds cares not and keeps on blowing.

Wind blown breakers at Morro Strand

A torrent of wind blown fog cloaks Morro Rock

For those of us who cherish the staggering biodiversity of the California coastal waters, we owe the wind our gratitude. It is the force of the prevailing northwest wind, racing parallel to our coast, that drives the cycling of deep and surface waters in a process know as upwelling. The force of the wind mines the depths to replentish nutrients and ultimately nurtures the sea otter, the kelp, the lowly anemone and the salmon on your dinner table. On my most desperate days in 30 knot winds on an exposed sea bluff, I would call out in the face of it, "You drive the upwelling!" and feel comforted.

Californians have had a mass visitation by ambassadors of the wind on their beaches this month. Velella velella, or By-the-wind-sailors, are colonial cnidarians (relatives of jellies, corals and anemones) that live entirely at the mercy of winds and currents. These sea-colored jewels, float at the margin of sea and sky with stinging tentacles dangling below waiting to ensnare tiny prey and a diminutive sail aloft to catch the wind, all anchored at the surface with a jellied cobalt raft. 

The final evidence of passive mobility in skidmarks in the sand

The chitonous sails may be either right or left "handed" (the sail angled towards the right or left of the center axis) and the angle of the sail determines the direction each Velella travels relative to the wind. In a theoretical mass of  both right and left oriented Velella at the center of the ocean, the wind would sort them in opposite directions, to beaches on opposite sides of the Pacific. You can read an detailed study of their aerodynamics here. A change in the prevailing wind can turn that sail against them and cause these denizens of the open ocean to be blown ashore in drifts by the millions---at first glittering blue and aqua drying to delicate wisps of clear tissue over time. The tentacles are transformed from hanging, deadly (to the littlest ocean dwellers) chandeliers to gelatinous shrouds once stranded.

Don't forget to look closely. You will be lost it the beauty.

Snowy plover treads lightly amonst Velella drift

At one with the seafoam

The nudibranch Glaucus feeding on Velella from below.
Photo from ferrebeekeeper.files.wordpress.com

At sea the Velella are prey to nudibranchs, the floating purple snail Janthina and another odd open ocean traveler with a double Latin name, the Mola mola. This blog on the natural history of Bodega Bay has an account of Mola feeding on Velella. As I see them strewn across the sand from Sunset Beach up towards Rio Del Mar at the heart of Monterey Bay, I wish for some predator to find them a banquet.

Harry, always game to try anything dead, takes a taste and does not find them delicious. I wonder if his tongue took a bit of a hit from the tiny nematocysts.

I have not faced off against the wind in an adversarial way since July of 2014. I have felt the resentment waning, even just a few weeks later as I walked the blustery beach of Assateague Island---as Harry and I chased the foam tumbleweeds rolled across the sand by the southwesterly, I felt my heart softening. On a visit to Seattle I was treated to a sail on Puget Sound and felt gratitude for the wind's captured energy propelling us forward.  The next day that I find the sea frothy with whitecaps and the gulls reeling on invisible currents, I think I shall find a kite and embrace the wind.

Wind animated seafoam on Assateague Island

Full sail on Puget Sound

The final word on wind from John Denver:

"So welcome the wind and the wisdom she offers. Follow her summons when she calls again. In your heart and your spirit, let the breezes surround you. Lift up your voice then and sing with the wind...."

Microcosmic: A Romance in the Chaparral

Bush poppy, Dendromecon rigida, the first to bloom at Manzanita Park

This is the earnest work. Each of us is given
only so many mornings to do it---
to look around and love.

-excerpt from "The Deer" by Mary Oliver

In the embrace of California winter, on the sandy manzanita corridors of a hill of chaparral, I think I am falling in love. 

When Harry and I relocate, it is always a priority to seek out optimal trails. The perfect trail offers benefits to both of us in terms of exercise, at least a little off leash possibility for Harry and, if I hit the jackpot, natural beauty with plenty of opportunities to immerse myself in a microcosm of wildness. As it turns out, such a place is just a mile down the road from my new home. I started hiking at Manzanita Regional Park shortly after tucking Willow Wildwood safely into her nook at Jack's house in the rural hills overlooking the Elkhorn Slough in November. Because the park is operated by the county youth association, the gates are only open for youth association activities which are sporadically held, usually on weekends. What many have apparently argued is a drawback, is in fact helping to keep the park uncrowded---most of the time, hikers must park near the road and bypass the gates and  hike a short but steep access road to the trails. Since even the smallest bit of inconvenience weeds out many potential users, the 3-mile trail is rarely occupied by more than a handful of hikers at one time. My misanthropy is indulged and much of the oak and chaparral habitat remains relatively undisturbed.

Looking south across oak, cottonwood, willow and toyon

The 3 miles wind up and down hills, through dense stands of manzanita, coast live oak woodlands and willow riparian zones. Manzanita Park and I were first introduced in winter while much of the life is dormant. But on that very first walk I felt the pulse of potential---a sleepy whisper from all the seeds and spores and cocoons that rain and warmth are on the way and we will be meeting soon. Since that day there have been days of rain and days of the arid dryness with which we have become so familiar in the drought days of California. As I walk the trails at Manzanita 3-4 times each week with Harry, I am witness as the biota responds.

November

In November, it is the manzanita who sing the love songs. While most other plants are dormant, the three species of Arctostaphylos at the park are producing flowers, feeding the Anna's hummingbirds that zoom across the trail ahead of us. The twisting red branches lead to inviting fairylands of moss and lichen under the dense canopy of leaves that in turn form their own canopy and micro-understory.

Pearly pink blossoms on brittle-leaf manzanita

The underpinnings

Miniature forest of moss and lichen under the manzanita

Toyon, the native Christmas "holly" of my youth, upraised handfuls of red fruit in offering as we descend from chaparral into oak woodland.

Toyon, Heteromeles arbutifolia, is at its fruiting peak in November

We dip down into cozy glens of coast live oaks, but in November much on the forest floor is dormant. There are signs of what's in store come spring: roses and ferns, bravely holding their place in the thickets. The sly poison oak hides its give-away leaves of three and tickles passers-by with naked twigs. The oldest of the oaks creaks with each gust the secrets of their sleeping buds that will someday be acorns.

Into the oak woods, Harry leads the way.

Rose hips show their Christmas colors too

An admirable coast live oak

Despite the drought, the cool interior of the woods support pockets of lush, fragrant mosses. I find moss on the soil, rocks and trees, both oak and manzanita. Mosses are benevolent epiphytes, treading lightly on their host and taking no nutrients or water as tax for their tenancy---I find they sometimes have the appearance of lanky green mammals that have stretched out on a branch to steal a nap. If I could find a practical way to carpet my home with this, I would, and I would always be barefoot.

Mossy carpet on coast live oak invites a nap

December

The first heavy rains of the season (of the year?) came to central California in early December. The drumbeat started like the tapping of a nervous toe on Willow's roof, then swelled to a great pounding as the impact of individual drops rushed together in a welcomed harmony of raps and splashes. We have been so thirsty. 

For days we have rain and each morning brings new awakenings. The woods, dripping their own shower of collected rain between the cloudbursts, smell rich with dampened bark and leaf and root. A community of spores, asleep deep in the soil, were awaiting the prince's kiss of rain. Everywhere in our coastal chaparral microcosm, herculean fungi are pushing up mounds of soil and humus with their reproductive fruiting bodies: Manzanita Park is alive with mushrooms.

Bench pressing Russula

I don't know what these are, but I like the tableau.
Stay tuned on iNat.

My newest field guide is "All That the Rain Promises and More..." by David Aurora. Recommended by my mycophile friend, Brian, it is a fine starter guide to help a novice disentangle the mushrooms. So I now have another organism to add to my search image, and stalk and obsess over. I suspect there are worse obsessions.

Jack-o-lantern mushroom, Omphalotus olivascens

Witch's butter, Tremella aurantia, is parasitizing another fungus,
the false turkey tail, Stereum. 

Deep in the soil an astounding hidden relationship is at work; a network of hyphae are interacting with the roots of their plant host, extending the host's ability to absorb nutrients and, unlike the mosses, takes sugar as compensation. These mycorhizzal associations date back to the earliest vascular plants and may have helped plants colonize terrestrial habitat. Nearly all plants you love or cultivate are involved with fungi in this way. The mushrooms are the showy reproductive organ while, beneath our feet churns the giant cooperative: the mycorhizza. By the way, have you seen the X-Files episode "Field Trip"? It's one of my favorite science nerd XF episodes ever. Stream it on Netflix ASAP and you'll never think of mycorhyzzae the same way again! As for their taxonomic kinship, perhaps you  know that they are not plants, but are you aware that they are really much closer to animals? Weird.

Simplified cladogram showing evolutionary relationships.
I found it on this guy's site, don't know if he made it but I think it's quite good.

From the dried tussocks of fern fronds unfurl new growth. Mosses, lacking the water transport and water-loss prevention systems of the vascular plants, depend on ambient moisture. They are well equipped to soak up the new rain like velvety, green sponges. 

Goldback ferns (Pentagramma triangularis) emerge.
Their name comes from the showering of gold-dusty sori on the underside 

Moss swells on a manzanita trunk

The rain has reverted some of the more ancillary trails to active waterways, and the muddy banks reveal for the first time the extent of nocturnal mammalian activity on the trails. Harry always knew these tracks were there even when they were only molecular---nose down and sniffing, tail wagging---now my inferior senses can track them too. While I can't differentiate the tracks of coyotes from the dogs that use the park, I can recognize their fur-filled scat in the trail, and the tracks of deer, rabbits and raccoons show they are also taking advantage of the man made passage through the dense brush.

Harry and I find some of the connecting trails
have become creek beds in the rain

Raccoon tracks stay distinct on the damp sandy trail

                                   
January

After a short but respectable influx of rain, by January we are once again dry (for more on the status of the California drought look here). It seems as if it will not be enough, but time will tell how California's varied ecosystems will respond. Many of my plant enthusiast friends are hopeful that there will be an improvement in wildflower abundance and duration over last year, which was dismal and depressing. While the mushrooms are now dessicated and decomposing here in my Manzanita microcosm,  the flowering plants are just beginning to introduce me to their procession of bloom. The leggy shrubs along the trail that I had overlooked for weeks blossomed with a startling yellow "pop" here and there (ah, they are bush poppies!) only to flood the trail margins with yellow by the end of the month. They are the first blooms I find other than the manzanita, and they do their best to woo me with their sharp, bright earnestness.

The trail side bedecked

The bush poppies (Dendromecon rigida) inspire some sketching
on a warm January day

As of this writing, the rush-roses (Helianthemum scoparium), white yarrow (Achillea millefolium), wild cucumber (Marah fabaceus) and Ceanothus have joined the manzanita and bush poppies in showy influorescence. Every day a new plant introduces itself and joins in on the love song.

Wild cucumber curlicues

Ceanothus, California's liliac

Breeding season is in full swing and Anna's hummingbird males are performing their territorial aerobatic loop de loops above the manzanitas. I think they perform these spectacular displays both as courtship and territorial defense, but the ones I've witnessed on my walks seemed to have another male perched disinterestedly nearby. Here's a nice paper describing the displays, be sure to check out Figure 3 for a diagram of the components of the loop. In addition to a well-timed flash of the brilliant red throat patch, there is a very loud "CHEEP" as the male reaches the bottom of the loop--- I have a recording of this on iNat. In 2008, two UC Berkeley students determined that this sound came not from the bird's throat, but its tail feathers! 

The warm winter days at the park encourage flight in several overwintering butterflies, I ardently anticipate the spring flight of other species and am practicing spotting caterpillar activity on some of the larval food plants along the trails. I think I shall make the acquaintance of many more butterfly species before long. I look forward to sharing them and all the new residents I meet with you---who doesn't want to share about a new friend? It's just too good to keep to myself.

Painted lady, Vanessa cardui. Larval food plants thistles, mallows
and others.

Red admiral, Vanessa atalanta. Larval food plants: nettles

I hope you all can find a little patch of wildness near you with which to fall in love across the seasons, for me it feels very much like romance. I awaken each morning excited to visit my manzanita microcosm, eager to see what has sprouted or bloomed. I am soothed by the smell of oak and the song of the thrasher from the top of the toyon. On these trails, I am nimble, patient and observant---my very best self. Who can ask more of love than that?