29 April, 2019, by Indika Young

USA: CA: Monterey Co: Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve: Redwood Campground
Today our class left for our second adventure of the quarter. Big Creek Reserve was our new destination. On the way to this reserve we made one stop at Moss Landing State Park to receive a presentation on sea otters from Griffin. He gave us an overview of history and legislations that helped to protect sea otters when they were on the verge of extinction. We spent a little more time naturalizing in the area and continued on our journey to Big Creek. As we made our way to the iconic coastal cliffs, my carmates had trouble peeling their sentence away from the view. The combination of mountainous rock and open ocean provided view unlike anything else that I’ve seen in California. Lush green and deep blues are an extraordinary color match. We turned onto the Big Creek Reserve road to continue our naturalizing along the trail. We drew maps to orient ourselves to the area and catch a glimpse of the flora and fauna. Just 45 minutes of naturalizing and its already apparent that the flowers here are much more abundant and various than the Mojave Desert. The rest of the day consisted of setting up camp,eating dinner, and hearing some presentations on Indigenous peoples and Highway 1 road development.

30 April, 2019, by Jeremy Ott

On the 30th of April, in the year of 2019, Natural History Field Quarter spent the first full day at Big Creek. We awoke to the sound of a large creek, but not Big Creek. We sauntered at naturalizing pace up to Whale Point, but didn’t see any whales. On our way there, we saw the plant community change from redwood forest to scrubland. I think it has something to do with the rocks. Never forget the rocks. From the top of whale point, we traveled down to the actual Big Creek, under Highway 1, and onto the rocky, pebble beach. There were gulls for identifying, stones for skipping, and water for swimming. We ended our time with a plant walk, having many introductions to plant families. Awaiting us at camp was a cheese platter, dinner, presentations, and of course the running water of the large creek, not Big Creek.

My personal theme of today was coziness. This started with rising early to look for spiders at 6 am, an hour usually only Cook Crew sees. No giant spiders lurking in the bathroom, but we must all be hopeful. I huddled under a blanket under the canopy as everyone rose slowly and it was an immensely peaceful experience to be sitting- cozy- and smile as we all started our day. The itinerary was a hike of two options along the way to Dolan Ridge. The first option was to stop a mile up at an overlook- the Philosophers option. Those of us who stopped here spent the next few hours diving deep into the worlds in front of us and journaling hard. (This was the cozy option.) The other group went on all the way up to Dolan Ridge to see the whales off the coast, flowers littering the slopes, and condors fly so close they could see their leg tags with the naked eye. As the day wound down we all found our ways into the water (mine was feet only, the coziest way). Now I sit next to a fire, again discussing bathroom spiders, ready for a cozy night listening to the flowing creek.

Today was… that’s right you guessed it, niche hunt day! Everyone went to their own spot where they spent about 6 hours observing whatever they were drawn to the most. Some people went to the beach and hung out with the gulls, while others checked out and keyed some radical flowers. After a full day of heavily spinning the wheel, we all gathered back to camp and ate the ever so delicious veggie burritos! So yum! Oh did I forget to mention that the legendary Chris M F Lay returned! Where was he you ask? Well he was just doing what he does best in Santa Cruz, you know. After din, we gathered for our nightly meeting and shared our nature notes- niche hunt edition. Everyone had such a unique day filled with exciting and new findings to share.

Today was full of big surprises and events. We went to two of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited. We drove uphill for a bit before starting our journey to Canoga Falls. We all went swimming in Devil’s Creek which is
where Canoga Falls flows. There were three falls and we swam and jumped into two of them. We all shivered and giggled watching eachother and warming up in the sun. On the hike back up to the car, some of us lapped up water from a dribbling stream coming from under a Redwood! We then hopped in the car and prepared for a reflective sunset experience at Gamboa Point as we watched the sun go down. We journaled and reminisced about our journey thus far- as a group and individually. We watched the last light of the day in eachothers arms and cinnamon roll hugged before heading back to camp to sleep and prepare for our next day.

Today was our last morning at Redwood Camp. After our routine oatmeal breakfast (plus scrumptious accompaniments) we packed up our things, loaded up all our personal and naturalizing gear into the vans, and headed for Lopez Camp. Standing on a low rock along Devil’s Creek on our way out, we saw a Great Blue Heron, the first and only Heron we saw in Big Creek. Our caravan scooted down Highway 1 and got permission
reach Lopez Camp,
to drive through a Catholic Monastery to south of Redwood Camp but sitting 1800 feet up in the grassy oakland ecosystem. No longer beside camped out beside the rushing creek, the bird songs were plentiful and the plants and animals were much different. We had time to naturalize & journal, settling into our cozy new camp. Cook Crew whipped up veggie sushi and we ate pineapple upside down cake around the fire.

Today was moist. The sky dropped rain. Raindrops fell on us as we walked down the road from Lopez Camp. We were naturalizing on the path, listening to birds and plants. The drops got us by surprise with very few of us being prepared. We stopped at a nice spot with a view of the ocean, I sat to draw mugwort and yarrow. Emily and I practiced being gentle and non-invasive to the plants when we picked them when we collected plants to test our knowledge of plant families. We only took what we needed, as we should. A lot of us went back to camp as a result of the rain and I had a good time listening to the rain on different surfaces on the way back. For me, the rain mimicked the sound of the creek from Redwood Camp, the loud fast flow. Today was also a good practice of open vulnerability while talking with Mayra on the trail talking about family history. This was a good reminder me of all I am grateful for. At camp, I learned 2 cool knots from Chris while setting up tarps! And everyone else was trying to stay dry but for some of us it was too late (Ellen). We ended the day with Jep-Birdy around the fire!, jeopardy but for naturalists.