Exploring Nature in the San Francisco Bay Area
Sharp Park is at the center of a controversy over whether golfing can coexist with endangered species. The Pacifica course, which overlooks the ocean, is a unique coastal freshwater ecosystem with a lagoon that’s great for the California red-legged frog and San Francisco garter snake. But if you want to keep the fairways open to…
A seasoned climber, hiker, outdoorsman, and lifelong world traveler, Craig Anderson could have remained an “itinerant geographer and outdoor guide”. Instead, he moved to Sonoma County fifteen years ago, signed up to work for a brand-new nonprofit called LandPaths, and stayed.
Thousands of elephant seals have colonized beaches to partake in annual, combative mating rituals. The mass of beached blubber is not just a tourist spectacle. It also draws the attention of non-human species that come to dine off the rare bump in food supply. About 10 percent of the pups born are casualties of the…
The cash-strapped city of Benicia has come up with a novel way to keep its local state recreation area open and off the list of California park closures: get the state to foot the bill. The city says it can operate the 500-acre park at less than half the state’s budget.
The Bear Valley trail, heading southwest from Park Headquarters to the coast, is one of the emblematic walks, and the most traveled trail, on the Point Reyes Peninsula. Jules covers about 10 miles and encounters a bobcat, an alligator lizard, early-blooming milkmaids, and very late-blooming Indian paintbrush.
Ravenswood Open Space Preserve in East Palo Alto. Trail: 2.7 mi, 9 ft elevation gain, loop
Independent, nonprofit environmental journalism connecting people with nature in the San Francisco Bay Area.
