Saving Mono Lake State Reserve
If any landscape can be called iconic, Mono Lake surely makes the cut. But with no revenue, the state park here faced closure--until John Muir’s great-great-grandson joined with local park...
Author Archives: Joan Hamilton
Joan Hamilton is producer of Audible Mount Diablo, a podcast for people who love the outdoors and want to know more about the plants, animals, and history of the Bay Area. Her interest in fires was sparked by the 2013 Morgan Fire in Mount Diablo State Park. She wrote two articles and numerous web posts for Bay Nature about nature's recovery from that conflagration, and has been a fire follower ever since. Most recently, she's been working on Diablo Range Revealed, a series that explores life in the inland coast range after the SCU Lightning Complex fire. You can find evidence at savemountdiablo.org/learn/diablo-range-revealed/.
Lifeline from the Feds
Samuel P. Taylor State Park in Marin is a popular destination for many of the millions of people who live within a short drive of this secluded redwood forest. With...
The Parks and the People
Some 70 state parks were scheduled to be closed on July 1, 2012. But determined action by park-loving citizens around the state has succeeded in getting some parks removed from...
A streak of silver in state parks cloud
In the first few months after California announced its park closures in May 2011, park advocates were stunned and outraged. The state was tearing down 25 percent of a world-renowned...
Solutions for some state parks on closure list
In its haste to eliminate $22 million from its budget, the California parks department took aim at 70 state parks, one-quarter of the system. The strategy: sacrifice a few to...
A Little Help from Our Friends
In spring 2011, the bad news about California's state parks hit: 70 parks were slated for closure by July 2012, including 18 in the Bay Area. Since then, volunteers, nonprofits,...
A Classroom in the Woods
The East Bay Regional Park District is not just the nation's largest and oldest regional park district. It also has what’s likely the largest corps of professional naturalists of any...
Through the Eyes of the Lion
Odds are you'll never see a puma. But if you spend enough time outside in local open space, there's a good chance a puma will see you. We know surprisingly...
Reaping the Harvest
It’s easy to forget how much of the Bay Area was once a working landscape. Row crops, orchards, and pastures held sway in places now covered by freeways and houses....
