Maryland 2018 - Day 2

The second day of the trip began at the fairgrounds where I met up with Andy who had hauled my sheep from California.                    I got them situated near the other Jacob sheep and hung my newly made sign (that includes my location). I delivered my entries in the fiber and photo contests (a whole suitcase full--it's a good thing that Southwest allows two free bags). Then I went exploring.

I was looking for somewhere that I could do some hiking and get a feel for the country. I found a destination on the map called Soldiers Delight Natural Environmental Area. It was about a half hour away. On the way there I saw a sign for Patapsco Valley State Park so I stopped there first.

                                                             This was a pretty area. It was "mixed use" including developed playground and lawn areas, but I stuck to the trails. I was not dressed for the weather. According to the news it was 90 degrees on this day and we haven't been that hot at home yet. Too bad I hadn't brought shorts...although the ticks that I found later made me think that maybe jeans were better anyway.

            Dogwood. That's one flower that I knew.

There were flowers (and a bird*) that I didn't identify, but I'm not obsessing over that. *ID by a blog reader: Chipping Sparrow / ID by another reader: lower flowers look like Summer Snowflake, Leucojum aestivum, a naturalized species native to Europe.                 More of the trail.

After leaving that area I drove on to the original destination.               No one knows for sure why this place is called Soldiers Delight but the purpose for preserving it is the unique geology and ecosystem.            From Wikipedia: "The site is designated both a Maryland Wildland (1,526 acres) and a Natural Environmental Area(1,900 acres) ... The site's protected status is due to the presence of serpentine soil and over 39 rare, threatened, or endangered plant species along with rare insects, rocks and minerals.""Weathered serpentinite is dissolved rock, transformed into thin, sand and clay poor soil which is easily eroded. This creates a land surface which is stony, unfertile and sparsely vegetated and is the reason that the term "serpentine barren" is used to describe these areas.

                 Signs explained that "the serpentine grasslands and oak savanna systems are now imperiled due mainly to the lack of American Indian and lightning fires which are critical to this fire-dependent ecosystem...The oak savanna ecosystem is one of the rarest communities in Maryland." Over 90% of the less than 1000 remaining acres lies within Soldier's Delight NEA.

The white flower is the endangered Serpentine Chickweed. I think the purple one is a Phlox species.

Blackjack oaks, post oaks, and black oaks are here.                 Praire warbler.

                      I hiked the 2-1/2 mile trail around the grassland area and came back up to the main road. I decided to take another trail that went to the chromite mines. Half way through this one I started to think that maybe I should have brought water...and food. I realized how hungry and thirsty I was. It was already about 3:30. Did I say that it was very hot? I started to have visions of having to be rescued. Or not--how would anyone know where I was? I also found a tick on my hand. Then I started to feel like there must be ticks everywhere. Forget those mind games. I was still enjoying the new landscapes.                                                                  I happened to look up and saw this.           Here is a closer view.            Along the way I found the Choate mine that operated from 1818 to 1888 and for a brief period during WWI. I had expected something bigger when I read the sign pointing to a pit mine (picture the massive mines I've seen in the west). It's hard to imagine that it was a few holes like this produced the world's supply of chromium.                 This is one of the other mines. I did make it back to civilization without mishap (and only one other tick).

I got back to the fairgrounds in time to meet up with friends and go to dinner in Frederick. Stay tuned for the main event!

Berryessa Snow Mountain NM

We have traveled days to see some of our spectacular National Parks and Monuments, but there are some nearby that don't need as much planning to get to. Now that Dan is retired he has more lots of flexibility and my schedule is the one that we have to work around. Last Tuesday was open. We wanted to see some of the spring wildflowers before they were gone for this year. We drove to one of the nation's newest National Monuments. Berryessa Snow Mountain NM was designated in 2015 (and was on DT's list to cut, but fortunately was spared). This is over 330,000 acres of mostly chaparral and spans a long corridor from Lake Berryessa into the Mendocino National Forest in the mountains west of Willows.

We first planned to drive up Bear Valley just east of the monument, where we'd heard the wildflower show is spectacular, and then find a hiking trail at the northern end.  Then Dan suggested we drive north on one of the roads through the monument and come back on Bear Valley Road. So we turned north on an unpaved road, driving toward Indian Valley Reservoir.

            Wildlife!

      I stayed in the car to photograph this one.                 After all, he (she?) was conveniently right in the middle of the road. We got several miles in on a ridge line and got out to take in the scenery. The day was sunny, but the haze to the east was typical of summer in the Central Valley. We could just make out the Sutter Buttes in the valley but you can't see them in this photo. This is looking down on the road that we were going to take that goes through Bear Valley. Most of that color is displays of wildflowers.             Looking to the west it was hazy/cloudy. This is Indian Valley Reservoir. The place where we stopped was strikingly green.              From the Davis Enterprise: "Serpentine, scientifically called “serpentinite,” is a rock formed by combining water with rock that originally was part of the Earth’s mantle, the layer beneath the Earth’s crust. Soils formed from serpentinite rocks lack certain elements required by most plants."

               There are a number of plants that grow only in this ecosystem. I haven't identified this one that hasn't yet opened its flowers. **Now ID'd by friends as Bitter Root, Lewisa rediviva". 

               Here is another. **This one just ID'd as True Baby Stars, Leptosiphon bicolor.

                  We continued to drive, getting out here and there to take in the scenery.

                                             Delphinium.

We did a lot of driving on the rocky somewhat rutted roads. Somehow we missed the road we were looking for to take us to the trails at the north end of the valley. We came to a fork and made the decision to head north. We drove probably a mile on an even more rutted, slower road and then came to a creek crossing with a drop off that I was sure my RAV-4 couldn't make--at least not without knocking off the bumper. And if we found an even worse spot further up I don't think we could have come back up that ledge. So we turned around there and took the better maintained gravel road that ended at Clear Lake. We'd left our house around 9:00 and it was around 4:00 by this time. We hadn't put in that many miles, but lots of hours in the car.

              There was one more trail in the direction home. We stopped at  the Knoxville Staging Area which we found out is a staging area for ORVs, and walked for about an hour. This area was ravaged by one of the wildfires a couple of years ago.                     As we walked back towards the car I first heard and then saw this scrub jay.

                        It seems that he was hungry.                        It was getting late in the afternoon when we left this area and headed south towards Lake Berryessa.                    We didn't get out here and I didn't take many photos but this was one of the most beautiful places of the day. The road passes the site of the Homestake Mine.

From the Napa Valley Register : "The history books have it all wrong. For Napa County, the Gold Rush wasn’t in 1849. It happened less than 30 years ago in a remote corner of the county ruled by jackrabbits. From 1985 to 2002, Homestake Mining Co. extracted $1 billion worth of gold from the desolate landscape above Lake Berryessa. For a time, the McLaughlin Mine was the biggest producer in California and one of the largest in the world."

This area is now the Knoxville Wildlife Area owned by the CA Department of Fish and Game. The road follows the creek and the hills are covered with green grass and oak trees. I was in awe of the beauty at this time of year. I still love the hillsides in the summer, but I guess it's been a long time since I've been out in the California hills in the springtime when it is so green.

                 The road took us to the northern end of Lake Berryessa. I'm not a big fan of reservoirs but this time of year with everything so green it looked like a natural lake.

Most of the day was spent driving but what a splendid exposure to a little known region right in my backyard. Next time we'll hit the Bear Valley Road first and then get to those hiking trails.

Visiting Texas - Day 7

We left Big Bend NP (last post) about an hour before dusk without a real plan for where we'd stay that night. There were "campgrounds" outside of the park but those turned out to be RV parking lots. We figured that we would find something in Big Bend Ranch State Park, west of and adjacent to the National Park along the Rio Grande, and get in another day of hiking before Matt and I left the next morning from El Paso.                     This is the area where we camped. I got up when I saw the sunrise to explore near the river. We had heard rapids but couldn't see the river from the campground.                   After all the signs at the previous day's stops I did start thinking about mountain lions as I walked along deer trails though those willows and brush to reach the river. So I made plenty of noise, but I also decided to move to higher ground where there was no cover.                      I was also glad when Matt showed up with the same idea (early morning photography) in mind.

            Logs and rocks in the river were enough to create the sound of rapids that we heard from camp.

              This is the view back to the camping area. That green speck in the middle is the truck.

                   We looked at the map to see where we might hike in this park and found Closed Canyon.

                                                            This is a canyon that leads to the Rio Grande.

Absolutely stunning! The photos don't do it justice.

                                                             You can walk in about 7/10 of a mile before you can't go farther.

                                                                  If you're a mountain goat  you can try to go farther ... or if you want to get wet.

                                               Matt went around the bend and came back. The map shows that it is a relatively short way to the river.

                                                             You wouldn't want to walk here in the flash flood season.

              That slot in the shadow is the entrance to this incredible canyon.

                  On the road again.

                 The next stop was the HooDoos Trail.

             Hoodoos refers to these eroded formations.

            Matt showed me how to do photos with my camera that you can later turn into panoramas. This isn't distorted like the pano shots on the phone.

           More spikey things.

                   We left the park and were on our way to El Paso where we would spend the night and Matt and I would take an early flight home the next morning.

                We entered the town of Marfa and Matt found on Trip Advisor that visitors could check out the dome of the city hall.

              That was a good excuse to get out of the truck and stretch. This small West Texas town may be worth a second visit someday to investigate it's art venues and to find out more about the Marfa Lights (google that).

           Entering El Paso.

                                               Flying over southern California where the fires were (are) still burning.

Home.

Table Rock Hike

Dan and I spent a few nights in Napa last week. It was strange to stay overnight somewhere when we live so close, but the time-share stay was a retirement gift from his co-workers and it was a great opportunity for us to go do some of those things that are "in our own backyard" that we don't take time to do otherwise. The weather outlook for Tuesday was dry so we decided to find a place to hike. Many of the state and county parks in the area are closed due to the recent horrific fires. But we found a trail that was unaffected by the Tubbs Fire. We had breakfast in Calistoga and then drove up Hwy. 29 towards Mt. St. Helena.

              The Robert Louis Stevenson State Park to the north of the highway is closed but the Table Rock trail is south of the highway.             The trail starts out in groves of oak, madrone, and bay trees. This area was damp from recent rain and the trees looked as though they were covered with green fur.

                                                                A new kind of fir fur tree?       Making things larger than life through the lens.

               As the trail descended the other side of the first ridge the vegetation seemed more typical of California chaparral. These are the seeds of the California Buckeye.              The California buckeye is one of the first deciduous trees to leaf out in the spring, but it also goes dormant and loses it's leaves in late summer. Although the "nuts" may seem similar to chestnuts, these are toxic.

             The trail leads to the western end of a formation called the Palisades, volcanic rock that towers over the northern end of the Napa Valley.            That is the town of Calistoga down below.                We sat on the rocks known as Table Rock for quite awhile, soaking up the sun and watching birds and the beautiful sky. The fire missed this area, but not Mt. St. Helena in the background and the lower area along the highway.               As we sat on the rocks Dan noticed a Cal Fire plane flying around Mt. St. Helena and then saw it drop something--we wonder of that is seed to help stabilize the burned landscape.