Banana slugs in Napa

Napa County banana slug

On Saturday morning members of our Rotary Club were invited by one of our members to hike in the Moore Creek Preserve in Napa County.  This is a piece of property that will be part of the Napa County Open Space District.  The creek drains into Lake Hennessey, the largest water supply reservoir for the City of Napa.  The lake is located in the eastern hills of the valley near Conn Creek Rd. and the Silverado Trail, off of highway 128.

                                                             

Very unexpectedly, we came across banana slugs.  In 2009 we had a delightful hike in the redwood forest of Santa Cruz County - but Napa County is not a "coastal" county in California.  And our remnant redwood forest is predominantly on the west side of the valley, with a stand of redwoods near Angwin that are reputedly the easternmost redwoods in California.  Banana slugs seem to live in conifer forests.  While there are some second growth fir trees in the Moore Creek Preserve, this is not a redwood habitat.

It is beautiful country, with a still running creek in the bottom of the canyon, heavy oak/madrone/maple and fir forest - surrounded by steep hills covered with oak savannah.

The trail is rough and not quite finished.  The park will open next year - we hope in the spring.  The trail we took is partly an old logging road which crosses the creek a half-dozen times.  My feet were damp after the second crossing.

 Some of the banana slugs we saw were spotted like old, overripe bananas.  Their color was muted, not the pure electric yellow of the ones we saw in Santa Cruz at Big Basin Redwood Park.  Still, they are a sight I never expected to see on this little hike.

I also did not expect to see wildflowers, but a few clung to the edges of the trail and to the rocks of the hill.  Ferns filled the low areas next to the creek. 

There seemed to be some seams of serpentine rock, and a wild mix of trees that included gray pines - which like serpentine soil.  We missed the presence of Craig and Millie, birders who could identify all the birds we heard.

We had a jolly crew on the hike.  I had a weird realization today as I sat down to write.  I think I was the eldest member of the group. 

I'm sure this earns me no special distinction, but I was winded on the steep sections of the trail and obviously need more conditioning before setting out on a major hike.

John kept me company as I gradually started to fall back in the group.  I could always use "taking photographs" as an excuse for slowing down, but actually started to feel pain in my repaired hip.  

Thanks to John our host and guide for homemade oatmeal cookies when we got back to our vehicles.

Muir Woods

Patti and John Inman are visiting Napa for a few days before heading up to Lake Tahoe. Last summer we visited the giant sequoias in Yosemite. While talking about trees, it became apparent that these east coast residents thought the giant sequoias and coast redwoods were the same trees. So off we went to Muir Woods, the only old growth redwood forest remaining in the bay area.



As a well-known bird watcher, John was as interested in the fauna as the flora. Down the trail is John with his binoculars scoping out the tops of the trees.



Just over the barrier is Redwood Creek, with many spotted Salmon fry. The young salmon were abundant and healthy looking. We did not see any banana slugs thundering through the mosses. Of course this is a much dryer time of year than when I last went to Big Basin Redwoods.

Banana slugs and fungi

Just for a little truth in labeling, this post includes banana slugs and fungi. There are also waterfalls, redwood trees and undulations.

Yesterday we had a spring walk in the woods at Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Note that the trail description says that the elevation is 200-400 feet. Seems easy enough, although the trail is labeled "strenuous". It turns out that the 2-400 foot elevation change happens about 12 times in the 12 mile loop we took. These turned out to be "undulations" or extremely large sine waves. Otherwise, a delightful day in the redwoods hunting fungi, banana slugs and waterfalls. We went to the Berry Falls, Golden Falls and Silver Falls - here's a copy of the official park map.


Berry Falls

---

Along the way we found lots of fungi sprouting from downed trees and vegetable detritus. Colors ranged from virulent green to pink and dayglow yellow/orange. I'm sure they all have names.


Chuck, Felicia, Francois, John and I were the group. By about the half-way mark, my bum hip began to give trouble - so our return trip was a rather leisurely stroll for the seasoned hikers of the group.

We lunched at the base of the first (and highest elevation) falls of the group on West Berry Creek. John, having hiked the trail several times, did not reveal the delights in store. Especially the rappelling down the face of one of the falls. I asked, "is there another way down?" and John's one word answer - "No." Hmmm... 6 miles up a creek with an airplane cable to hold on to to get down. I guess I'd rather do that than try to walk back around...

We were truly stumped a few miles down the return trail where a pair of redwood trees had fallen across the path giving a chest high by 200 foot long barricade. Up and over, or down into the canyon to go around? We tried several methods and all emerged on the other side of the barrier.

The UC Santa Cruz mascot was thundering through the mosses...



...and fallen and fire scarred trees gave contrasting texture and color to the wet green canopy of the forest.


On the way home to Napa, exhausted and hungry (at least the hungry part was true of all of us) we stopped in Albany/Berkeley for the best pizza in the Bay area - Zachary's.