Ranger Duckie at Point Reyes part 2

 

Point Reyes National Seashore is a good place to view how man influences nature and how nature influences man.  Here I am viewing an introduced plant, ice plant that had a significant and negative influence on the coastal dunes.

An exhibit at North Beach explains how the invasive ice plant and European beach grass are displacing the native plants and keeping the normally shifting dunes stable.  Stable dunes may sound like a good idea but I think we need places where we can see nature at work.

Here you can see piles of ice plant that have been pulled up while some of the native plants are reestablishing themselves.

Beach Primrose

 Seaside Daisy

Near the visitor center we can see how nature can have catastrophic effects on man.  The 1906 San Francisco earthquake ran right through Point Reyes.

The offset of this fence shows how far the earth moved.

 The line of posts on the hill above the fence demarks the San Andreas Fault.

The fault runs through Tomales Bay, in front of the lodge where were staying.  I wonder what it would be like to be there when the earth moves again.

Carrizo Plain

The last stop on this trip was the Carrizo Plain. I had read about the Carrizo Plain and its magnificent display of wild flowers many years ago but we had never visited.

We started seeing wildflowers along the road long before reaching our destination.

When John Muir wrote about the wildflowers of California, people in other parts of the country didn't believe him.

Sauntering in any direction, my feet would brush about a hundred flowers with every step... as if I were wading in liquid gold-- John Muir describing the Central Valley of California in the spring of 1868

It is said that the place that comes closest to what Muir saw is the Carrizo Plain. While the northern section of the Soda Lake road is paved, the rest is unpaved and the better display in this drought year was in the southern section, down this well graded and maintained dirt road.

Here the bright yellow goldfields catch your eye and if you stay in the car that is all you will see.

If you get out and look, you find a great variety of flowers growing among the goldfields.

The rangers said that this had been a poor year with many varieties not blooming at all but it was still a sight worth seeing.

The thistle sage plant really does look a lot like a thistle but the flower is much different and very pretty.

If the wildflowers weren't enough, this is a good place to see evidence of the San Andreas fault. The fault runs along the front edge of the temblor range seen here in the distance and if you drive over to the elkhorn road on that far side of the plain you can see an offset of Wallace creek where it crosses the San Andreas. The west end of the creek has move north relative to the east end of the creek.

We didn't go over to Wallace creek but we hope to in the future. The only facilities in the monument are some primitive campgrounds and the visitor center. There is also a self guided trail at Wallace creek.

For more information about Carrizo Plain National Monument, click here.

Next month look for a photo journey to Yosemite, one of our favorite places, a place we try to visit every spring and fall.

Pinnacles National Monument part I

Hubby and I first went to Pinnacles a year ago and we have been back twice. It is a very interesting place with great scenery, unusual birds, beautiful flora and interesting geology.

This post will start with the geology. I'm not a geologist but as a native Californian I know something of earthquakes. Pinnacles lies on the San Andreas Fault. The rock formations are the remains of an ancient volcano that straddled the fault. The rest of the volcano is nearly 200 miles to the southeast. This part is slowly sliding north.

This view is take from the highway on the east side of the monument. The campground is on the east side and while you can hike to the west no road crosses the monument. It would take at least an hour and a half to drive to the west entrance.

The formations are very popular with climbers and it is a great place for hikers like me.

I took this shot because it looked like other formations that I knew to be volcanic in origin.

My next post will show some of the wildflowers we saw and a lovely stream.