DryStoneGarden

It has gotten a fair bit of press, but I wanted to do my own post about the closing of 70 California state parks in September. This has been talked about for a couple of years now, so I suppose I’ve been expecting something like this. Still, I can’t begin to express how bummed I am. Anita and I visit the parks regularly and they’re a big part of why we like living in the Bay Area. At this very moment, she is camping with a friend at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, one of the parks that will close.

According to news reports, parks were chosen based on their visitation and how much revenue they create. When I read that, I knew that one of my favorite parks would be closing for sure, Castle Rock State Park in the hills southwest of Saratoga. It’s probably one of the lowest fee generators in the system. The park has a paid parking lot, but there is free parking on the street fifty feet away from the parking lot, and everyone, myself included I’ll admit, always parks on the street. It’s popular, though, even if it doesn’t generate revenue. It has great hiking amongst oaks and laurels and redwood trees, and it’s the most significant rock climbing area in the Bay Area, the place where a number of influential climbers including Chris Sharma, probably the world’s top climber, learned to climb. The rock is a sandstone with weird twisted shapes and huecos rising on boulders and spires scattered throughout the forest; guidebooks usually use the word ‘fairy-tale’ at some point in the description. I was planning to go down and take some photos, but I remembered I already have these, from a couple of years ago, in the meantime. After I took the photo below, I realized that a little blond-haired future climber had crept into the frame. He’s pretty much exactly how I looked at that age.

Henry Coe, another favorite and one where I have paid a good amount in fees over the years, is also closing. The California State Parks Foundation has an interactive map showing all 70 of the parks scheduled to close. There’s also a petition to sign, information about efforts to keep the parks open, and a gallery of beautiful photos from the parks.

— Addendum — I found a blog for a photographer who has set himself the goal of visiting and photographing all 70 closing parks.

Machete Ridge, Pinnacles National Monument

Strange winter, eh? We thought for sure we’d be skiing this month, but it has been hiking and climbing weather instead. Last weekend we went to Pinnacles National Monument. We had been there once before about ten years ago but only made it as far as the parking lot before it started raining and we had to go somewhere else to climb. (Pinnacles is famous for being crumbly, especially when wet, and you don’t want to break off the a key hold and transform a classic climb into something harder.) The rock is volcanic breccia, lava mixed with chunks of other rock picked up during the eruption. It’s originally from a volcano 180 miles south, and slowly moved north along the San Andreas fault to its present location. Even with the rock dry, I found it hard to feel confident that the chunks of conglomerate sticking out of the cliff were going to hold my weight. Though, of course, everything held. We did several short climbs, but mostly we checked out the scenery, the crags, the manzanitas (A. glauca) in bloom, the talus caves (tunnels beneath massive boulders piled in the narrow gorges, very cool), and for one moment several condors drifting over head (a good page on ID’ing them here, a couple of nice photos here). I’ve now seen both Andean and California condors. Not sure if that has caché in the birding world but it makes me happy.

Ridge above Bear Gulch

Tiburcios X

Before?

Some of the rock and manzanita pairings reminded me of things we’ve tried to do in some of our naturalistic plantings, except of course on a much bigger scale. Rocks and manzanita go so perfectly together, as classic as any traditional companion planting.

After?

The Ignorables, Bear Gulch

And a patch of shooting stars (Dodecatheon clevelandii ssp. patulum per Katie at NatureID) was my first wildflower sighting of the year.

Shooting Stars, Dodecatheon sp.

Indian Paintbrush

As a year-end housekeeping task I’ve been going through all the photos I took this year, and I thought I’d post some of the ones that never made it onto the blog. It’s not exactly the year in review, but it does cover some of the things we did this year.

Playa Ligui, Baja

About a dozen photos are below. (more…)

Yesterday was the second birthday of DryStoneGarden. Posting has been somewhat slower this year, but still pretty steady, and the post total is now over 200. We’ll see if it hits 300 by the third birthday. Thanks to all who read and comment.

A few months ago, I mentioned that the US Census had sent out a form for our tepee. No one, of course, resides in the tepee; we said zero occupants and mailed it back, but then I guess the census was left to wonder who had filled out the form if no one was living in it. They’ve now sent two separate workers to verify that there really is no one living in it. I suppose a tepee does sound like it could be the home of an anti-census militia activist. Neither of the census workers spoke enough English to even know what a tepee was, and until this weekend we hadn’t found time to put it up yet, so we’ve had some rather long and involved conversations to explain the situation. In a couple of weeks some friends will be coming to visit; we have to just hope the census doesn’t send out a third worker while we have people in the tepee.

The Tepee in April

Somehow I’ve managed to post nearly a year and a half without mentioning that our yard has a tepee during the dry season. I photographed it several times last year, but I think I needed some time between it and the post about our outdoor shower. I don’t want to sound too feral.
I may not have posted about it here, but the tepee hasn’t escaped the eyes of our government. This week we received census forms addressed to two different residences, one to our house and the other addressed to our tepee. It’s pretty funny to receive official government mail addressed to a tepee, but it’s also rather Big Brotherish, as the tepee hasn’t been up since October. Though maybe that’s just the speed our government works at; a census worker walked the neighborhood last summer, and now we see the fruits of that labor. Maybe we should reply as occupants of the tepee.

Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand

We learned about the unique charms of a tepee while traveling in New Zealand (tepees are surprisingly popular in the northern, sun-belt part of the South Island) where we stayed for several weeks in a tepee overlooking the Marlborough Sounds. It was an ecotourism place called Vanishing Point, and we helped build another tepee that was seventeen feet tall and wide enough to sleep eight people. The place was only accessible by boat, and there were other logistical challenges as well, but it was a beautiful place with a panoramic view of the Sounds. Vanishing Point doesn’t have a website anymore, so I think it has indeed vanished.

A Really Big Tepee Under Construction

Our tepee is much more modest and homemade. Anita sewed two canvas tarps together according to the pattern we saw in New Zealand, and we cut some of our bamboo for the poles. We put carpets and a futon and a little stone table with a candle lantern, and we call it the summer house. When we have house guests we run electricity out to it. One or two people were skeptical beforehand, but everyone leaves singing its praises. There’s something very very nice about a tepee, the cathedral version of a tent.

The Tepee in May