Conifer Country Blog

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Klamath Mountain Snowpack

Pondering the 2016 hiking season…

I have tracked how Klamath Mountain snowpack is correlated with the beginning of summer hiking season since 2003. In 2009 I started the Bigfoot Trail on the summer solstice, and it worked out perfectly—I found the perfect mix of snow, open trail, and manageable river crossings. 2010 was a late snow year and June was only open for hiking in the Southern Siskiyous. In 2011 I began a section hike from the Trinity Alps to the Siskiyous on June 29th in a snowstorm and we trekked across snow for nearly two weeks while in the Trinity Alps and Marble Mountains. Our time also included numerous, often stressful, fords of raging rivers in the low-country. What follows is an analysis of the El Niño winter we are emerging from and what snowpack trends seem to be saying about the 2016 hiking season.

2011-Alps
2011 section hike — crossing Stuarts Fork in the Trinity Alps and snowfields in the Marble Mountains

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California’s Botanical Landscapes

A PICTORIAL VIEW OF THE STATE’S VEGETATION

By Michael G. Barbour, Julie M. Evens, Todd Keeler-Wolf, John O. Sawyer

I am very fortunate to have been a part of the book project now in print titled CALIFORNIA’S BOTANICAL LANDSCAPES: A PICTORIAL VIEW OF THE STATE’S VEGETATION (CNPS Press 2016, $39.95). Over the past 5+ years this book has evolved through volunteer efforts as a service to those passionate about California’s flora. The book is dedicated to Humboldt State University botany professor and North Coast CNPS founder John O. Sawyer. I am honored to have contributed time to the project with photographs for many of the ecoregions as well as coauthoring the Klamath Mountain chapter with Sawyer. This new book surveys our state’s native vegetation with photos and text exploring each of 14 ecoregions across the state. It includes a wide array of photographs of broad-scale vegetation patterns paired with in-depth, interpretive descriptions written by California’s top plant ecologists. 

California's Botanical Landscapes
California’s Botanical Landscapes

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Owen Cheatham Redwood Grove

Or…Why Star Wars fans should love conifers–especially redwoods

Return of the Jedi had a major influence on my experiences as a youth. I wanted to be able to use the force like Luke Skywalker, as do many children again in 2016. The Star Wars phenomenon has trickled down to our 3 year-old son from his Kindergarten classmates at Montessori as well, so we decided to seize the day and go for a hike that combined the legend of the force with the power of the redwoods, and explore where science fiction meets natural history.

redwood needles and cones

Redwoods might just be the grandest species in the plant world—from top to bottom they are the epitome of grandeur. The tallest redwood is 379’ (and still growing), while one of the most massive redwoods is a mere 320’ but has a basal diameter of nearly twenty-six feet. Those are some impressive beings! The largest redwoods grow in northwest California, where they favor mountain slopes and river terraces close to the ocean while also being situated in the summer fog belt. Across the coastal landscape redwoods domineer a highly specific range—when soil, water, and exposure are optimal. The Owen Cheatham Redwood Grove is a great place to visit these giants.

In search of redwoods and film history in the Owen Cheatham grove.
In search of redwoods and film history in the Owen Cheatham Grove.

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San Gabriel Mountains – A Photo Tour

Celebrating the Bigcone Douglas-fir of the San Gabriel Mountains

After nearly a month of travel through one of the gems of Southern California, I’ve had enough time to reflect on all aspects of the journey–including the wonders of the wilderness and forest, as well as the state of the region. The San Gabriel Mountains remain wild, in large part, because of isolation due to slope. John Muir called them the steepest mountains he ever hiked in! It seems to me that the forests here are doing as well as they are, while our climate is rapidly changing, because of this isolation in slope. Forest pathogens travel much slower through heterogeneous landscapes with mixed stands of trees. Many of the Bigcone Douglas-fir stands we visited were in isolated on slopes of greater than 50º. Isolation sculpts the ecology of the mountain’s biota  in many ways, and makes life for Pseudostuga both easier and more difficult. That balance defines the ecological amplitude of many of the species on the California Floristic Province.

I’m still working on the full report for our findings, but in general it can be said that within region 1 of the map below, Bigcone Douglas-fir are not doing well. Elsewhere, they seem to be doing fine at the moment–especially if the species has been able to avoid high intensity fires. Reproduction is occurring at variable rates but they seem to like disturbed areas, like landslides, which the San Gabriels have no problem offering.
map-PSMA

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Manzanitas of the San Gabriel Mountains

Botanical Wonders of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.

Manzanitas are most commonly found across the Angeles National Forest on south-facing slopes where they are restricted to various mineral soils (most often granites). A. glandulosa appears in the front range from ~2,000-5,000 feet, A. patula in the higher elevations above ~7,000, A. parryana on the north slopes toward the Mojave from ~5,000-7,500, and A. glauca is common across the range but mostly on the north slopes adjacent to the Mojave from ~4,000-6,000. I never found Arctostaphylos pungens but it is within the range according to various sources.

What follows is a photographic journey through the San Gabriel Mountains to enjoy the spectacular places manzanitas grow.

glandulosa
Arctostaphylos glandulosa ssp. gabrielensis decorate the beginning of the Devil’s Canyon trail near Chilao Flat.

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