Crested Woodpecker

* * *

I spent the early part of the morning, while it was still too dark to hike down the Cataract Trail, poking around Serpentine Power Point (see Tamalpais Walking for the origin of that name). I didn't see anything new to photograph, but I noted lots of  (silverleaf?) lupine plants getting started (but still no sign of sky lupine), and lots of cobweb thistle (though only one of the dozens of plants had a flower on it already). Later in the day a bit of warm sunshine opened the closed petals of a few scattered California poppies, but overall the wildflower show, to whatever extent we will have one, is still probably a couple of weeks off. 

Returning to my car in the Rock Spring parking lot, I was questioned by a young man who might have been from Brazil (says my gestalt). He pointed the way I'd just come from and asked, "Is that the trail to the beach?" I cocked my head, unsure if I'd heard him correctly. I figured he'd meant to start at Pantoll and hike out the Matt Davis Trail down to Stinson. He had no map, so I couldn't show him that or any other plausible route. I told him there was no trail to the beach from there, but he gave me a kind of jaunty, defiant look that said, "I will find my way just fine, old man." I pointed him in the right direction as best I could, thinking he had an interesting day ahead of him.

The Rock Spring water tank is still dripping from a loose valve fitting at the top of the tank. As I stood next to the huge thing and thought about the water pressure against those weathered old barrel staves and rusty hoops, I had a brief but scintillating moment of panic. I don't know if I faced my fear or just ignored it, but I threw caution to the wind and made a couple of photographs.

I was well down the Cataract Trail before I realized I'd left my water bottle back in the car. I didn't have a particular hike planned, but I figured I might need it if I got ambitious. After photographing this irresistible group of shooting stars (five flowers and a bud on the stalk, instead of the usual two or three flowers), I got all the way to the Mickey O'Brien Trail without taking my camera out of the bag again. 

My throat felt a little scratchy, maybe due to an incipient cold, so I decided to hike back up to the car. I figured I'd do some poking around up on Bolinas Ridge, but as I hiked back up the trail I thought that if the water tank and the shooting stars were my only photos of the day, I wouldn't have a blog post for today. With very few exceptions, that's always the way I approach an outing on the mountain. I rarely have anything in mind. I rely on inspiration and luck, and sometimes I go home empty-handed.

I've been hearing pileated woodpeckers quite a bit on recent trips, and this morning was no exception. These large woodpeckers often sound tantalizingly close but can nevertheless be difficult to see. I was terrifically excited when this guy swooped over my head, crossed Cataract Creek, and came to rest on a jumble of logs just a hop, skip and creek-dipped-shoe away. My longest lens was a 105mm, but I couldn't resist trying my luck. 

The first bird's mate soon swooped by but was much more skittish about me and hid behind trees until finally fluttering into the woods across the meadow. She was soon followed by the other one. I foolishly followed them despite having no chance whatsoever of being able to photograph them with my puny 105mm. I had binoculars, though, and figured I might enjoy just watching them.

To make a long story short, the more brazen of the two birds, presumably the male, ended up pecking so diligently on a large downed Douglas fir that I was able to waltz right up to him. In truth I approached incrementally, grateful for the bird's forbearance each time I moved a bit closer. 

At no time did Pileated Pete seem the least bit perturbed by my proximity, even when he finally prized out his prize, a big fat grub.

I shot a little bit of hand-held video showing Pete working the wood, then gnoshing on bits of Mr. Grubs before he decided to go for broke. Unfortunately, he couldn't quite fit Mr. Grubs down his gullet and sort of spit him back out. He held one end of the grub in his beak and snapped his head to and fro to try to snap the grub into smaller pieces, but he lost his grip and sent the grub into some nearby brush. I felt bad for him for losing his meal after all that work, but he did not seem bothered in the least. After Pete flew away I managed to find the remains of Mr. Grubs on the ground under some bushes. Not a pretty sight.

I got back to the car and drove out along Bolinas Ridge to walk the same short loop I followed last week. This land snail, perhaps a redwood sideband snail (Monadenia infumata), was crossing the path. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the calypso orchid I replanted (after photographing it from bulb to crown) was still alive. Dozens more have sprouted flowers in just the last week, and spotted coral root is already getting started in a few places. I hung out with the shrieking robins, screaching steller's jays, whistling mourning doves, band-tailed pigeons making very weird noises, and mountain bluebirds sounding as pretty as they look. I think I spooked up a poorwill at one point and was disappointed that I hadn't noticed it before it flushed.

* * *

Winter's Last Moon

* * *

I figured the "spring forward" time change would rattle most people, so I expected to be the first one at the gate at 7 o'clock this morning. Wrong! I had to pull in behind three other waiting cars, and four more followed close behind before the ranger opened the gate about three minutes past the hour. For years I was the only galoot crazy enough to be there that early, but crazy people have become a dime a dozen. 

As I followed a car up Pantoll Road we entered a dark canopy of trees. My headlights caught a strange movement like dry ice swirling inches above the surface of the road. It was wispy waves of tree pollen. 

For the first image of the day I hung out awhile as the sun came up. Eventually it rose far enough to balance the light in the sky so the moon wouldn't show up as a featureless white orb. I still miss the more picturesque, gnarled old top of that Douglas fir. Before a storm damaged its top (in December 2015) it used to have kind of a Japanese bonsai look to it. Now it's just kind of an old flat-top, growing up slowly.

I was scoping out the Serpentine Power Point area for wildflowers (not much there yet) when I found this interesting, very pointy oak leaf. Its skeleton is so tough, the old leaf was practically a stone.

Speaking of which, there are always interesting stones to be found in serpentine areas.

I kept putting the macro lens away, only to have to pull it back out a few moments later. I finally just left it on and didn't take it off again the rest of the morning.

These rocks in the serpentine area are not only soapy-smooth to the touch, some of them are laced with the most intricate veins of color.

I was drawn to this patch of lichen because its shape was a very nice circle, as if it had spread out evenly from its central starting point.

After checking out the serpentine I poked around in the forest a little bit.

I read somewhere that the bulbs of calypso orchids are edible. One web site says they are "edible, raw or cooked, and have a rich, butter-like quality." I tried one raw, and "buttery" was not the first adjective to strike my fancy. The thing is, you feel pretty guilty harvesting any of these little nuggets, and since they aren't exactly yummy, I do not plan to try it again anytime soon. 

Pure diva.

I found a nice spot on the edge of a very small meadow where I could sit on soft grass and lean my back against a fairly smooth rock. The scent of Lomatium, an interesting combination of fresh and slightly acrid, was still in my nose, or at least in my memory, since I'd just been handling some as I viewed its flowers under a hand lens. A pileated woodpecker called out a few times from a tall dead tree close by and a northern flicker drilled a couple of staccato bongo flourishes into another snag nearby. Acorn woodpeckers laughed from a nearby granary tree, and a few band-tailed pigeons shifted nervously in some high tree out of my sight. 

From my pleasant seat I got to ruminating about how macro and landscape photography bring you to opposite ends of your experience of nature. If the greater landscape can take your mind out past the moon to the ends of the universe, the macro landscape can take you to its beginnings, to a point so small that we cannot even make a picture of it in our minds. And yet from that zero-point onwards, matter and antimatter managed to keep from annihilating each other, stars formed and exploded with enough energy to create all the elements that would eventually come together to form the planets, including our own blue-green Earth. A big bang, and then: the initial conditions that led to planets, birds, wildflowers, people.

I watched the tops of some nearby Doug fir trees dance in the wind with a blue sky for a backdrop and thought I had been wasting my life right up until that moment. What better occupation could I ever have than to be right there in that blissful moment? A shaft of sunlight cut through the forest and lit up a shooting star that I hadn't noticed before. So much for my blissful repose! Nature just keeps calling.

As I walked back to my car beneath a canopy of madrones and a very big old Doug fir, the ground was singing with milk maids. Once again, I couldn't resist.

* * *

Divide Meadow Bobcat

* * *

A friend at work told me at least a couple of months ago that he'd had a fairly close encounter with a bobcat at Divide Meadow in Pt. Reyes, and then he told me it happened again just a couple of weeks ago. Yesterday I felt that I couldn't spend another five-day workweek in an office building, so I took the day off to bike up to the meadow, with a plan to look for the bobcat and afterwards ride to the end of the bike trail then hike down to the coast where Arch Rock used to be.

I spotted the bobcat right away. Unfortunately, he was way in the back of the meadow. I watched him for a few minutes and it looked like he was hunting and would likely be in that same spot for a good while. I parked my bike and hiked up along the edge of the woods to try to flank around him, not wanting to make a direct line toward him. 

Steller's jays were squawking like crazy as I got near the point I'd last seen the cat, so I sat down and waited to see if he'd show himself. A slight skunk scent wafted over the whole meadow. My shoes and socks were soaked from walking through the dew-covered grass. The cat didn't show up, so after about a half hour I hiked back to my bike and continued the ride.

After checking out the collapsed rubble that once was Arch Rock (it looks much the same as it did last year) and picking three ticks off me, I rode back to Divide Meadow and waited maybe half an hour before the bobcat showed himself again. I caught him pouncing after his prey, but he missed. He looked back at me as if I'd messed him up, then scuttled away in the other direction. I spotted him again a short time later and got the second shot before he strolled into the woods and was gone.

A few people I spoke with at the meadow had all seen the bobcat before and enjoyed a chance to see him again.

There were trillium along the Coast Creek trail, and even a small patch of bleeding hearts.

Seems like everyone is seeing great patches of miner's lettuce this year. The stinging nettle is just getting started and is still just barely knee high.

This is the view up Coast Creek from close to where it used to flow beneath Arch Rock. The old Arch Rock trail no longer has a sign or construction barrier to warn hikers away. Instead, the old trail has been completely decommissioned, covered up with plant material. The sign at the trailhead no longer mentions Arch Rock either. It just points to the Coast Trail.

Three ticks! The first was crawling on the back of my left hand. I plucked him off and checked my legs. Sure enough, I found two more. When I walked back to the main trail I spotted what looked like another tick hanging out near the tip of a dry stalk of grass with its legs splayed out. I put on my glasses to get a better look, and sure enough, there he was. After that I very gingerly continued along the trail to Miller's Point.

From Miller's Point I could see with the aid of binoculars that Alamere Falls was going full blast onto the beach which was covered by a receding high tide. Breakers were splashing right up against the bluffs. I've been thinking about getting out to Alamere Falls again, and just yesterday I tried to reserve a camping space at Wildcat Camp for my wife's spring break next month. No dice. The week is already booked up. 

* * *

Snow on the Mountain

* * *

Sometimes it doesn't pay to be early. The Pantoll gate was locked when I arrived, well after 7 a.m., and probably closer to 8 a.m. I pulled into the campers' parking lot and got out to pay the $8 parking fee when a beautiful downpour of small hail turned the place into a wonderland. On second thought I decided to drive down the road to park for free, then walk back up to hike out the Matt Davis Trail. While I was setting up this shot of my first shooting stars of the season, a park ranger drove down Pantoll Road and opened the gate. It was about 8:20.

I walked a little farther along the trail to see what I might find in the woods and came across a bunch of calypso orchids. I was seeing calypsos three weeks earlier last year. Maybe they've been waiting for the rains to ease up. After shooting the orchid I hiked back to the car and drove up to Rock Spring, then headed out along West Ridgecrest to look for mushrooms. I was still finding quite a lot of fungi at this time of year in 2014, but my usual haunts on the mountain haven't been producing much this season, and I found very little of interest.

Instead of mushrooms, I found lots of Indian warrior.

Out in the open I found quite a bit of Lomatium getting started. As I was taking my time to poke around I realized the sky was getting interesting, so I headed back to the car to drive out to Druid Rocks.

My thermometer said it was a balmy 49 degrees, but the windchill was something else. A strong and steady wind was howling over the ridge, and I kept ducking behind big rocks to get out of the finger-nipping cold.

It wasn't long before I'd had enough of the cold, so I hiked back to the car and drove it to a nice overlook to await the incoming storm. I could see huge curtains of precipitation falling to the north and figured they would soon drift south toward me.

What I didn't figure was that the precipitation would fall as snow! It didn't stick, but it was still a beautiful thing to see. I posted a little bit of video at the end of the post.

Once the snow let up I drove back to have a closer look at one of the very few mushrooms I found all morning. Like a waxy cap I recently found, this was another stalked mushroom that seemed content just to put its head above ground and go no further. 

Here it is, pried loose to show its very short, fluted stalk. I took a picture then tucked it back from whence it came.

I shot this hand-held from inside the car, so it is what it is.

* * *

Carson Falls

* * *

It was a beautiful morning for a hike up to Carson Falls. Fairfax-Bolinas Road is still closed at Azalea Hill, so I had to hike up the Pine Mountain Fire Road instead of using my preferred route through the woods up Liberty Gulch. The whole valley above the falls was still in shade and covered in frost when I arrived. The falls themselves weren't going off in any big way, and the light was quite uneven, so I didn't even pull my camera out.

From a high rocky perch I glassed the falls for foothill yellow-legged frogs and saw only one. I hope there were plenty more out of sight. 

As I continued down the trail to the lower falls I bonded a little bit with some of the trailside trees.

They seemed happy to have some human company too.

The view of the lower falls in 2008 was considerably less obstructed than it is now.

As you can see, the flow volume, while nice, isn't anything special despite all the rain.

There was lots of serpentine spring beauty in bloom.

This is the view looking back toward Azalea Hill and Mt. Tam from Pine Mountain Fire Road, with spring beauty blooming like crazy just off the trail.

* * *

Chain Fern

* * *

I was looking for something else in my picture files when I noticed a fern I'd photographed last year that was growing on the tip of a small island in the middle of Cataract Creek. Because of its unique location I realized I had just recently photographed the same fern, a giant chain fern (Woodwardia fimbriata). Although I've been a little disappointed at the number and variety of fungi I've seen this year despite all the rain, it's good to see this fern growing back to its full stature. 

* * *

Change of Plans

* * *

I guess it's safe to say that the days are over where I am the only one waiting at the Pantoll Gate for the 7 a.m. opening time. I arrived way too early this morning, but there were already a couple of cars ahead of me. Instead of getting in line I pulled into the Pantoll parking lot and took my coffee for a short stroll along the Matt Davis Trail. Opening time came and went, and a ranger finally came by and said there'd been a mud slide, so the park gate was closed for the duration.

We all drove a short way down toward Bootjack and parked along the side of the road. I headed up toward Rock Spring to do the hike I'd originally planned for the day. I'm not that familiar with the south side of the mountain, but I figured I couldn't go wrong simply by heading up. And up. And up!

No complaints though. It was a beautiful morning.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the Rock Spring parking lot, still empty on a sunny Saturday morning. That doesn't happen very often.

I hiked out the Simmons Trail toward Barth's Retreat, then detoured onto unmapped trails to reverse a hike I did not too long ago. The throne rock is still there. I'd planned to have a relaxing sit on the throne to take in the view, but the seat was still in cold shade and looked downright uncomfortable, being made of rocks.

I was quite disappointed in the afungular nature of the woods. Today is collecting day for tomorrow's Fungus Fair out in Pt. Reyes, and I can only hope the woods up there are looking a lot more lively than Tam's.

It wasn't too hard to backtrack my last hike. I did veer off the wrong way at one point, but I soon corrected myself and in short order I was in recognizable territory. There was the little meadow in which I'd briefly been snowed on. There were the mossy rocks where I took a rest stop. The big tipi sculpture is still there.

I thought I had the whole mountain to myself until I saw, way off in the distance, a couple of bicyclists riding along Bolinas Ridge. They must have been loving the day with no cars to worry about.

As I began my descent toward Cataract Creek I was surprised to hear human voices. Sure enough, there was some kind of huge hiking group heading toward Laurel Dell. I saw a few more people on the trail as I circled back toward Rock Spring and figured the rangers must have finally opened the gate. 

Nope! The parking lot was still empty, but there were a few hikers here and there, and I ran into some trail runners who'd just cruised up the Old Mine Trail. Besides great lungs and strong thighs, I figure they must have knees of steel, as I was feeling some wear and tear even while descending at a walk.

With another sunny day forecast for tomorrow, I'm thinking another southside hike might be in order. Maybe loop out around West Point Inn or something. Get it while it lasts.

* * *

Treasured Lands

* * *

My copy of Treasured Lands, the magnum opus (more than 20 years in the making) of photographer Q.T. Luong, finally arrived, weighing in at an impressive 7.2 pounds and standing about 10 inches tall by 12.5 inches wide. Its 455 pages dwarfs my 175-page Circumannuation of Mt. Tam. This is one big book!

When I first heard about it I wasn't sure I wanted yet another photography book on the national parks. A couple of things convinced me to take the plunge (unlike Blurb books, this is very reasonably priced, and the reproduction quality is much better). First of all, Treasured Lands covers all 59 U.S. national parks. Second, I love that a lot of QT Luong's work is shot in large format (5x7, if I infer correctly). I am a sucker for large format photography even when it's displayed in the smaller print size of a book as opposed to a gallery wall.

The images are mainly landscapes, frequently photographed in really gorgeous light. You can tell a lot of planning went into the making of these images, and Luong readily shares his hard-won information. Indeed, the book is meant to be a guide as well as a collection of images. Luong shares personal notes about each image, along with trail information and seasonal tips. I'm the kind of photographer who likes to explore places on his own rather than being guided to someone else's special place, but I admit I would be tempted to check out some of these spots. I also liked that he shows some of these parks in more than one season.

Not all of the images in the book were shot with a large format camera, but that doesn't hurt the overall book. In fact, my favorite landscape image was shot from a floating canoe, hand-held, using a 35mm camera (Cedar Creek in Congaree National Park, p. 338). There aren't many wildlife images in the book, but my favorite is a pair of baby owls in a Zion slot canyon (p. 146) that was also shot in 35mm. My only nitpick in this outstanding book is that Luong does not indicate which images were shot in large format. He must have had his reasons for leaving that out since this is a photography book targeted in large part for other photographers.

Treasured Lands is a unique and worthwhile addition to anyone's photography collection. I thumbed my way through the whole thing the first day I got it, then went back several times over about a week to go through it more slowly, the better to savor each impressive image.

* * *