Sandhill Ecosystems
I took my nephew on a couple of short hikes today.
My thought was to make it a "Lime Kilns" day ... visiting
Fall Creek, UCSC entrance, and the Pogonip. (A fourth set
of kilns are just north of Engelsmann Loop in Wilder Ranch
State Park, but they're farther from any legal trailhead.)
So, first we visited the lime kilns at Fall Creek (see
any
of
these four
links). We took one of the least-used entrances: around
a mile or two farther up Felton-Empire Road than the main entrance,
there's a trailhead with no parking available. But another
50 or 100 yards up, there's a turnout big enough to park in.
It's just over a mile walk, down to the kilns, and we explored
the "Blue Cliff" a bit, then climbed back up to the car.
As we reached Santa Cruz, Ben said it'd be cool to visit
that observation deck in Henry Cowell State Park, so we
changed plans, put the other lime kiln sites on hold for
another day, and headed up Graham Hill to the campground
at Henry Cowell. That walk is another 1.2 miler, and the
360-degree views
from the observation deck were as nice as I had remembered.
Over near the closest Ponderosa Pine, someone had scrawled
on the railing:
I can't believe
I lost my weed
Mind the weed
Of Roger Tweed
For the other side
Yee see
Oooohhhh kayyyy ... maybe that loss was a good thing?
As usual, photos will be along once I have the patience
to put them up somewhere.
Anyway, the sandy ecosystems up in that part of Henry Cowell park
are similar to the ones around where I live. We recently got a
flyer from the
Zayante Sandhills Convervation Bank.
(If it's legit, it does seem odd that a ".com" would have
a say about what building projects are or aren't permitted.
Did we become a total corporatocracy without a peep of protest?)
About eleven years ago, I read a Sunset Magazine article that
covered the "Sand Islands" of this part of the Santa Cruz
Mountains. I've had a link to
my OCR'd version of it for years, on my
"Out &About" page
11:28:19 PM
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