Low Vision, High Adventure
As a sighted person, I take in most of my information about the world through my eyes. So I’m wondering how my fellow travelers perceive this journey when they can’t...
Exploration
Book Review: Native Treasures: Gardening with the Plants of California
Native Treasures: Gardening with the Plants of California, by M. Nevin Smith, UC Press, 2006, 288 pages, $24.95 www.ucpress.edu It’s almost an embarrassment of riches for native plant enthusiasts: two...
On a Roll
I was a backpacker from early childhood, and by my 20s thought myself a rugged adventurer, self-sufficient and in close communion with the natural world of John Muir. Unlike him...
Falling for Spiders and Termites
Things begin rumbling about now. Storm clouds pile up along the outer Coast Ranges, the winds shift and come out of the south, days get shorter, and the air gets...
Opening the Door to Nature for People with Disabilities
Losing your eyesight or the use of your legs doesn't mean you lose your desire, or ability, to explore the natural world. Until recently, opportunities for people with disabilities to...
Legacy of Karl Linn
”Karl Linn spent his lifetime bringing people together in community, in an urban setting, in nature,” says Carole Bennett-Simmons, project coordinator for the Peralta Community Gardens, one of five Berkeley...
From an Entomologist’s Backyard
The sticky monkey flower, common on sunny Bay Area hillsides, hosts an array of insect visitors. Edward Ross’s intimate photos of these visits are but a small sample of the...
Happy Trails
The single-track trail along the creek looks quite inviting: just wide enough for hiking, with no fallen limbs or nasty briars sticking out, a canopy overhead. It all seems so...
On the Beaten Path
Trails are the main way we access most of the Bay Area's diverse and abundant open space. Despite that, it's easy to forget that trails have to be planned and...
Dance of the Cranes
The Cosumnes Preserve near I-5 in the Central Valley is a surprising mosaic of flooded rice fields teeming with birds, breached levees creating new forests, and a river reclaiming a...
