Moving on from the Redwoods to New adventures

The tree behind us just may be the tallest tree in Marin County

    We have been told that the tallest tree in Marin County is here at Samuel P Taylor State Park in Wild Cat Canyon at the beginning of the Pioneer Tree Trail, but it's pretty hard to figure out which one. I can't quite figure out how anyone can really figure it out. I know it's a geometric calculation, but I think you need to be able to see the top of the tree and the bottom of the tree at the same time and that's pretty hard, if not impossible to do. Anyway, this particular tree was my latest candidate for tallest tree until I heard some more specific directions to it and they didn't lead to this tree. I think I just have to settle for knowing that our park has the tallest Marin County tree - that means taller than any of the trees in the more famous Muir Woods on the side of Mt. Tamalpais.

    This past month has been full of goodbyes as we prepare to leave Samuel P Taylor State Park for new adventures. We'll be dropping off the RV, car and kitties in Colfax before heading to Europe to spend time with our daughter Sheila and her family. Tonight is our last night amongst the redwoods along Lagunitas Creek for awhile so I've been savoring the moments here. 

    In anticipation of traveling I decided I needed to upgrade my phone. It is so aggravating how the batteries and efficiency deteriorate as these smart phones that we become so dependent on age. I told myself years ago that I would not get a smart phone until they did a decent job of combining the features of a variety of tech devices, and of course they did, and I am now on my 4th or 5th edition. I have to admit that the camera, or rather cameras in this new one are pretty amazing! Below are three pictures taken from the bench I go to each morning, same view before me, but taken with three different cameras from the same phone.

Distant view

A little closer view

The close up view

Can you see this tree in the previous 2 pictures?

Looking into the canopy above from my bench

A panoramic shot from the bench

Can you spot the same tree?

The little water fall in Wild Cat Canyon Creek just below the bench 

- reduced to a trickle in early March

The same little water fall restored after rain early this past week

Looking at the water fall from further back

An old growth tree on the way out of Wild Cat Canyon

The beautiful colors of the Redwood bark, moss and lichens.

I have been dreaming and scheming to make a sweater that reflects the colors of the Redwood Forest.

Here are the yarns I have finally chosen - stay tuned for a final product, hopefully completed before our return to Samuel P Taylor State Park in the late fall.

    You may get tired of hearing about and looking at Trilliums, but I never do, so please bear with me as I share a few pictures of this flower that so inspires and delights me!

The flowers turn pink and purple after they have been pollinated.

These are lots of baby trilliums that will have to come up for several years before they bloom.

The first year they come up out of the ground there is only one leaf - there are some one leafed Trillium plants viewable in this picture.

There are about 50 varieties of Trilliums - I think there are just two here at Samuel P Taylor.

This one is a Giant Wake Robin about to open its blossom.

The flower petals on the Giant Wake Robin stand up rather than spreading out the way they do on the white petaled Pacific Trilliums. Notice how big this variety is. I have also noticed a great variety of size difference in what I think are all Pacific Trilliums. I'd like to study them and measure the same plant year after year to see if they do get bigger each year.

A group of Giant Wake Robins

    Of course Trilliums aren't the only beautiful flowers or fauna in the park!

A pretty little Wood Violet along Pioneer Tree Trail in Wild Cat Canyon.

A wild Iris along  the Pioneer Tree Trail - I don't see a lot of these nearby.

Some Turkey Tail Mushroom

Some newly opened, beautiful red leaves and berries of poison oak - a plant that I do appreciate for its beauty and benefit to wildlife, but that I keep my distance from.

A robin in a tree near our campsite

A robin on the pavement nearby

Can you see the lizard? It sure blends in with the ground here.

Do you notice its missing tail? Something must have scared it to cause it to loose its tail.

What a strange and wonderful adaptation lizards have to drop their tails when threatened by predators - The lizard can get away while the predator is detracted by its detached wiggling tail.

    The winter Park Host here at Camp Taylor and I had been talking for months about hiking together to the top of Barnabe Peak and we finally did it about two weeks ago, not long before we were both ready to leave for the season.

Mt. Tamalpais as viewed from Barnabe Peak.

Mt. Diablo in the distance, also from Barnabe Peak.

Tomales Bay as viewed from near the top of Barnabe Peak

Park Host Gailynne climbing through a tree near the top of Bill's Trail.

    Bill's Trail is a beautiful, recently restored trail that the park trail crew is very protective of. It is the longest, but easiest way to get to the top of Barnabe Peak - about 4 miles, versus a little over 2. The trail is closed each winter to protect it from hard use during the rainy season and it was still closed the day Gailynne and I hiked down it from Barnabe Peak. We went around the locked gate using the excuse that as park volunteers we "needed" to check trail conditions before opening. Actually, Ranger Nick was happy to get our pictures of the three trees that were obstructing the trail so he could inform the trail crew of the needed work before opening the trail to the public. We were just happy that there was no total obstruction of the trail so we didn't have to turn back - our total hike that day was about 9 miles without retracing our route.

    Our son Shawn and granddaughters Sophia and Naomi finally made it to Camp Taylor for an overnight stay about two weeks ago. We enjoyed their young and active energy exploring and creating.

Sophia in the fort she and her sister and father were building.

Here is Sophia in the completed fort.

I did go in - once - 

but almost did my knee in as the step down into the darkness was deeper than I had anticipated.

A tiny salamander caught and later released.

Sophia on one of the old growth stumps

Shawn, Sophia and Naomi

   

    My sister Theresa and her dogs Spencer and Pippin also came for a visit while Theresa's beloved house in Grass Valley went on the market and into Escrow while she was here. We enjoyed having more time together than we've had in a very long time. We said good bye, looking forward to this summer where we will both be camp hosts at Lake Tahoe - in different parks, but not too far apart.

Pippin wearing his new sweater that I made in reverse colors to the one I made for Spencer last month.

    I concluded my California Naturalist Course at Pepperwood Preserve on March 12. I truly enjoyed this program, but was glad to no longer commute to the 10 weekly classes over an hour away. I think the most important things I learned were that I don't need to know everything and to investigate the things I am curious about. 

A beautiful view of Mt. St. Helena from Pepperwood Preserve on our last outing there.

A stunning Warrior's Pride

Proof that I completed the course!

   

     Brian, one of my class mates at Pepperwood, is employed by Safari West which is located on land adjacent to Pepperwood Preserve. Because Brian and two other employees of Safari West were taking the California Naturalist course at Pepperwood, the manager of Safari West invited the rest of us to take a Safari - a very generous gift. Only five of the 20 Naturalist graduates took advantage of the generous invitation and I was happy to be one of them. I found Safari West to be a unique and beautiful facility of the study, exhibition and conservation of exotic wildlife, especially those from Africa.

 

A Safari vehicle like the one we rode in.

No, this is not a Wart Hog - it is a Bush Pig.

They do have Wart Hogs at Safari West, but I forgot to get a picture of one.

A White Rhino

Wilde Beasts

A family of Zebras

One of the many varieties of antelopes at Safari West

A giraffe relaxing

I was especially enchanted by the bird aviary full of large and colorful birds.

I'm afraid to name each one, so I won't try.

Quite the bill

Isn't this a beauty?

Bright orange/red!

Two varieties of flamingos

No, this is not African, and no, it's not part of the collection at Safari West.

This Rattlesnake lives in a den with many others near one of the gates at Safari West.

The guides do point out the den to visitors, but because we were on a VIP tour we got to get out of our Safari truck to take a closer look. I wasn't quite as close as this picture shows - my new phone/camera brings things in close - but pretty much as close and maybe even closer, than I've ever been to one of these critters that definitely have an important place in our ecosystem, but that we need to respect.

   Thursday, March 24, the day I enjoyed going on "Safari" at Safari West, turned out to be a very sad day for all of us at Samuel P Taylor State Park. On my way back to Camp Taylor I learned that a fire started inside the iconic Pioneer Tree on the Pioneer Tree Trail caused the towering giant, believed to be over 800 (maybe over 1000) years old, to fall. The fire is still under investigation, but was certainly human caused, perhaps by an illegal warming fire. 

A picture taken by the camper/hiker who discovered the fire about 11:30 AM

I was in the kiosk Friday morning when a man drove up to deliver this card and bouquet of flowers.

This card expressed the feelings of many who called the park in the days following the fire.

This is at the entrance to Pioneer Tree Trail at the mouth of Wild Cat Canyon.

    The Pioneer Tree Trail has been closed ever since the fire, first because the tree was still burning on the ground, then to allow time for the ongoing investigation, and finally to give time for the trail crew to secure the area around the tree for safety. There is no word yet on when the trail will reopen.

    The bench I have been going to each morning is 1/4 mile beyond this closure, and I managed to find my way around the barricade on Friday morning, figuring I would be saying goodbye to my little grove until December when we return to the park. I really wanted to get closer to the downed Pioneer Tree which was about equal distance from either end of the loop trail - a little over 3/4 mile from each end - but I was resolved to not getting to see it. On Saturday morning Ranger Natasha called me and asked if I would go on a hike to check for any continued hot spots at the tree. I considered it a great privilege to go be a scout, so Rob and I headed out.

Here is Rob climbing under the fence at the eastern end of the trail where the fire trucks had parked and run their long, 3/4 mile long, hose up to the tree.

Follow the yellow hose

A banana slug crossing the hose.

The hose was left in place for several days in case the fire was to restart  - it didn't.

The gaping hole where the tree once stood.

You can see part of the fallen tree at the left base of its "children" which mostly remained standing.

I climbed up the hillside where the tree had fallen to look down to the remaining stump.

Trying to give some perspective of size - Rob is to the right of center.

The majestic, but hard to photograph tree before the fire.

    Going up to the fallen tree felt like a kind of funeral, and as I looked up at the remaining "children" of the Pioneer Tree I thought how the tree wasn't really dead - those remaining trees standing, though much younger are actually clones of their mother tree and they will live on and eventually probably flourish in the new space with more exposure to sunlight. The fire was tragic, and as one fireman said, stupid that some one illegally set a fire that brought down this 200 foot tall giant, but truth be told, that tree was destined to fall, probably in the not too distant future. Inside the tree had been hollowed out by repeated fires over hundreds of years and it's "walls" were pretty thin - that is the only reason a fire could bring it down the way it did. I am saddened by the falling of the tree, but it is not destroyed as some have said, it is transformed more suddenly and more violently then any would want, but it lives on. 

    There is much beauty in Samuel P Taylor State Park, and there is beauty everywhere. During March, most of our nature experience has been here in the redwoods, or up on the grasslands and oak woodlands of Barnabe Peak and Bolinas Ridge, but we have also ventured elsewhere.

A beautiful Oak tree at the Fairfax Library.

A sunset on New Valley Road where our Colfax area property is.

    I/we made two trips to Colfax to help out daughter Ruth when she had her long awaited surgery to repair a torn labrum in her hip - an injury sustained at work over a year ago, but thanks to the bureaucracy of Worker's Compensation it took a very long time to get the treatment she needed. Thankfully she is finally on the road to recovery - with her physical therapist saying she is making wonderful progress.

Here is daughter Erin after loading a U-Haul in San Bruno with her largest possessions to take them to her new home at Angel Island State Park.

Angel Island straight ahead!

    Some months ago I was invited to be a small group leader at a retreat marking the anniversaries of pastors in our California Nevada Conference of the United Methodist Church. Since retiring in July of 2020 I have not served in any official capacity as a pastor, and though I loved my career up until the very last day, I have not sought out such service.  I happily accepted the invitation to fill the role of Spiritual Director at the "Called to Wholeness" retreat, along with 5 other retired clergy, this past week at the Jesuit Retreat Center in Los Altos. It was a wonderful and inspiring event in a beautiful setting, and though I enjoyed serving and being served, at the time when we were all anointed to return to ministry, I knew that the ministry I am currently called to serve in is as a campground host helping to preserve and project our state's "extraordinary biological diversity" and encouraging and educating the visitors to the parks. I may accept an invitation to a similar role in the future, but I know my primary "work" and ministry at this time in my life to be in the natural world.

Patio area at the Jesuit Retreat Center

The Rotunda where our large gatherings were

Part of the panoramic view from the Rotunda

One of the retreat center's inviting trails

Very tame deer

The famous Adobe Creek.

The Adobe Software Company is named for this creek that meanders through the retreat center.

A wonderful labyrinth near the creek.

    When I returned to Samuel P Taylor State Park from being on retreat yesterday I immediately went for a short walk down the South Creek Trail seeking out the California Pipevine plants blooming about a 1/2 mile west of our campsite. I certainly didn't expect to find the Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly, but I did. What a welcoming gift back to my campground home! 

 

Pipevine Swallowtail posing briefly for me.

The blossom of the California Pipevine

Another delight 

- this pretty leaning tree on the trail I walk every day and that I just noticed for the first time!

Goodbye Redwood forest - we'll be back.

This path is beautiful and inviting, but there are many other beautiful and inviting trails

- in Sweden next week, then Cyprus in the weeks following, and back at Lake Tahoe the end of May.

Helping Richard and Diane park their rig as they return to Camp Taylor as Park Hosts.

Can you see Rob back by the rear wheels? Richard is driving the truck - all four of us took part in getting their home in place for the next seven months.

    One of the gifts of campground hosting is new friends we have made - we overlapped last year with Richard and Diane and have kept in touch ever since. Today as I walked through the park I said goodbye for now to at least four of our regular park visitors - what a blessing!

Got you looking pretty Straus!

Not so pretty!

Elsie in a not so graceful pose

Elsie got caught after a brief escape!

Notice her outstretched paws - she's ready for anything.

Another pretty pose by Straus

Both kitties watching a stranger at the door.