Little Harbor to Buffalo Reservoir

Date:  15 May 2010

Who hiked: Me, Hubby, Things 1 and 2

Time: 0900 - 1245 (approximate times)

Distance: 5.5 miles (measured on GPS)

Weather: overcast, cool

Having recently purchased a used pop-up tent camper, we decided to take our first family camping trip to Little Harbor.  The pop-up was a purchase from some friends who are retiring and leaving Catalina.  It is in good repair and has been happily used by Mr. and Mrs. Handlebar and their two boys for a number of years.  Hubby and I have reached that auspicious age at which sleeping on the ground is not looked forward to.  Well, perhaps the sleeping part is still looked forward to, but the unfolding and loosening of the back in the morning is not...  Thus, the availability of this camper was most fortuitous and we snapped it up.

Saturday morning began quite early when the Things awoke around 6 AM, with empty tummies and open mouths.  After breakfast and breakfast KP, we loaded up our daypacks with water, snacks, binoculars, and jackets and headed out.  Our goal today was to hike along the Trans-Catalina trail, then head down to the Lower Buffalo Reservoir and pick up an access road that would take us back to Little Harbor.

Straddling Little and Shark Harbors, on the windward side of Catalina, is a finger of rock known as the Whale's Tail.  See the close up GoogleEarth image to see why!  Before embarking on our hike, we headed down to the Whale's Tail, where there were many live-forever plants (Dudleya is the genus) blooming, some of them perched perilously close to the edge of the cliffs.  We also were excited to watch a raven incubating eggs in its nest.  See the picture of Hubby and the Things watching the raven...

We walked through the campground to the west-bound trailhead of the Trans-Catalina Trail.  The TC trail heads straight up the ridge from Little Harbor.  Even when trails are planned on Catalina, they rarely use switch-backs and this trail was no exception.  However steep the uphill portion of the trail is here, it is mercifully short, so after a fairly brief and not very taxing climb, we were on the ridge and on our way toward the reservoir.  It was an overcast and cool day -- one of those days when you feel cool to the touch, but are toasty warm on the inside -- as long as you are moving.

As we walked, Thing2 was most unhappy.  He was tired, he was hungry, he was bored.  This, as you might have surmised from other accounts of hikes with Thing2, is a recurring theme.  We find that the best solutions are to (1) take his mind off of the walking with guessing games and/or (2) feed him.  So at this point, I broke out the bag of goldfish, which he carried and ate throughout the hike.  A whole bag of goldfish...

The Things played detective on the hike.  First, we found shells on the ridge about 800 feet above the ocean.  The Things spent some time thinking about how they might have gotten there.  Thing 2 thought that birds might have carried them up to the ridge from the ocean, while Thing 1 suggested that the ridge had been underwater at one time...  Later we found a tail from an alligator lizard on the trail, but no lizard.  Thing1 guessed correctly that the lizard must have been attacked by a predator and dropped its tail to try to distract the predator.  We suspected that the ploy was unsuccessful, because we figured that if the predator had been distracted by the tail, it would have eaten it.  Since we found the tail, we figured that the predator had eaten the lizard and left the tail.  I like having smart children.

The trail is flat with a number of uphill climbs, especially around the 2 mile mark.  Because it was overcast, we didn't have much of a view, but I am sure that on a clear day this would be a most scenic hike.  After about 2.25 miles, we turned right on a path that went down to the Little Harbor road near the Lower Buffalo Reservoir.  It was clear that we needed to go to the right, but the trail immediately was overgrown with grasses, so the trail disappeared for a bit before reappearing.  The path from here on out was full of seed-bearing grasses, which burrowed their way into our socks and shoes.  There was much complaining from the Things about this and many stops to de-seed our socks.  The hike down to the reservoir from the ridge was easy, not too steep, and very picturesque.  Oaks dotted the hillside, with rock outcrops and flowers blooming.  Bewick's wrens and Western meadowlarks were singing.  We hiked down to the reservoir, then along the road until we got to the access road under a powerline.

We walked up the hill and at the crest, the road petered out to a grass-covered path that was barely discernable.  We bushwhacked along the crest of this ridge, knowing that it would take us most of the way to Little Harbor.  Here and there we had to dodge cactuses and throughout the hike we had to stop to pull seeds out of our socks.  Bill took the lead so that he could knock some of the seeds off the plants before the boys came through and as he's blazing out trail, he hears the heart-stopping buzz of a rattlesnake.  Everyone stopped until he quickly located Mr. Grumpy Snake, which was deep in a bush (*what kind?) directly in front of him.  He backed off and we all watched the snake and i snapped a few pictures from a safe distance.  Then we made a short detour around Mr. Grumpy Snake and continued on our way.  The Things were excited about the snake and talked of little else for the rest of the hike.

Eventually, the "trail" took us back to Little Harbor road, which we followed the rest of the way to the campground.  We walked through the campground and were buzzed by another rattlesnake.  This snake quickly slid away into the tall grass when I stopped to take a few pictures.  This encounter troubled me more than the first:  I expect to find a snake in the scrub, but not in the grass near a campsite!  That was a sobering thought as I often let the Things run amok once we're in the campground -- but not anymore!

While I was dealing with the rattlesnake, the Things and Hubby were preoccupied with a kestrel in a palm tree that had a lizard in its beak.

We saw some cool insects on this hike, including a short-horned grasshopper, a darkling beetle (genus Eleodes), and some bugs (hemipterans) on bladder-pod plants.  It was really interesting to see the hemipterans because there were multiple stages on the same plant:  eggs (as in the picture), juveniles, and adults.  In fact, most of the adults were in the process of making more bugs...  if you know what I mean.  And it was a fun opportunity to mess with my camera and its digital macro setting.

Birds seen: Killdeer, Red-tailed hawk, American kestral, Catalina quail, Western gulls, Northern raven, Barn swallow, European starling, Western meadowlark, Orange-crowned warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Chipping sparrow, House finch

Flowers in bloom:  Opuntia (prickly pear), lupines, Indian paintbrush, Lilac mariposa, Catalina mariposa, Bindweed, Live forevers (Dudleya), Bush sunflowers (Encelia californica), yellow lilies, Yarrow, Mustard, Crystalline ice plant, Rattleweed

Goat Whiskers Trail

View from the top of Goat Whiskers

Date: 7 May 2010
Who Hiked: Me
Route: West End Road and Goat Whiskers Trail
Time: 1130 - 1445
Estimated Distance: 7 miles
Weather: sunny, low 70s

So I have been remiss in my hiking lately and had intended to hike all last week. By Friday, I was feeling very frustrated with life, so around 11:30 I threw caution to the wind and headed out on a hike. I planned to hike out the West End Road, turn up the Goat Whiskers Trail, intersect the Water Tank Road, and take that over to the Trans-Catalina Trail (Silver Peak Trail) which would bring me down to the road that goes out to Wells Beach at Cat Harbor. My main concern was that the Things get out of school at 2:20, and I wanted to be home around that time. I knew that they would be fine at home for a short while, but they don't really like it if they get home and I'm not there. Not that they want to see me or talk to me, mind you, they just want to know that I'm available...

So I loaded up my daypack with water and snacks, my binoculars, a camera, and started out the West End Road. The island has been lovely this winter -- we've gotten more rain than normal and the vegetation has been lush and beautiful. Most of the flowers are fading now, but we've had a banner year with lupines, lilies, shooting stars, Indian paintbrush, and wild cucumber. The cucumber vines are now bearing spiky fruits (see left) which are not sharp, but leathery. The fruits are eaten by wildlife; I find rinds along the road all the time. Some plants are still blooming: live-forever, shrubs, lilies, monkeyflowers, Mariposa lilies, and Opuntia.

Hiking the West End Road is OK -- sometimes you have no traffic and meet no people, but other days you meet trucks and hikers. The dust is starting to fly again (it has been several weeks since we've had any rain), so meeting vehicles is unpleasant. As much as I dislike meeting vehicles when I am walking, it is not as hair-raising as when you are in your own vehicle. See my description of that from our Parsons Landing hike. Today I met a couple of trucks and several large groups of schoolkids hiking to Two Harbors from the Catalina Island Marine Institute (CIMI) at Cherry Valley. Most of the pre-teens were absorbed in their own conversations, but a few greeted me with "Hello hiker!".

I heard orange-crowned warblers, chipping sparrows, Bewick's wrens, and Catalina quail as I walked. One ground squirrel actually walked past me in the opposite direction. He appeared a bit tentative about the maneuver, which I thought was fairly bold, and he seemed to tiptoe past me while hugging the edge of the road.

The West End Road is also an interesting place to encounter some of the human history of the island. There are several abandoned silver mines along the road (see right). Prospectors worked the islands from the 1860s to the 1920s, when it was given up as a lost cause. But remnants of mining operations are still visible on the island.

About 2.5 miles later, I was at the trailhead for the Goat Whisker Trail, which heads up a ridge from Lions Head, the point just past Cherry Valley. The trail goes up (no switchbacks -- this is Catalina!), but the ridge is not as steep as some. So while it is most definitely a climb, one does not feel as if one is climbing a rock face.

The grasses are drying and their seeds get caught in socks, shoes, and other items and then poke you mercilessly. One of our friends had to take her dog to the vet to have one surgically removed from its cheek! They are decidedly unpleasant.
Periodically I would have to stop and pull them out of my socks. Worse that removing actual seeds are the phantom seeds that you could swear are there -- you can feel them -- but that you cannot find! Even though most vegetation is crisping up right now, there are still mariposa lilies blooming along the trail. These are lilac mariposa lilies (I think). There are also Catalina mariposa lilies, which have white petals with dark burgundy markings at their bases. Both are in the genus Calochortus.

I did not have too much trouble with the climb, though I did have to stop a few times to catch my breath and rest my legs. Lizards (Uta stansburiana) were often skittering out of my way as I disturbed their mid-day siesta in the sun. One was so discombobulated by my approach that it actually ran around in circles for about four revolutions before it dashed off under a lemonadeberry bush.

It became clear quite quickly that I was not going to be able to complete my planned hike in the time that I had allotted. I was not yet to the junction of the Goat Whisker Trail and Water Tank Road (1.2 miles) and it was already after 1 PM! I was not breaking any land speed records that day! I decided that I would hike up to the junction and make a decision about the rest of the hike from there.

I arrived at Water Tank Road around 1:45 PM. If I decided to continue up Water Tank Road, I still had some serious uphill hiking to do before I got to the highest point of my hike. If I walked down Water Tank Road, I would come out on the West End Road just before Howland's Landing, which is nearly 4 miles from town. In the end, I decided to retrace my steps down the Goat Whisker Trail and hike back into town along the West End Road. The trip down was quick (~20 minutes) and tough on the old knees. As I made my way back into Two Harbors, my phone rang. Thing 1 was calling from our neighbor's house to ask where I was. Apparently Thing 2 had come home first, seen the note I left for them, and promptly tossed it aside. So Thing 1 wasn't sure where I was and was concerned that I wasn't home yet. By 2:45, I was back at my door!

When I came home, I looked at my planned hike on GoogleEarth and discovered that it would have been shorter to continue on my planned loop rather than turn around at the intersection with Water Tank Road. Ah well, live and learn. Next time I will look more closely at the distances before I start my hike!

Other birds seen: barn swallows, ravens, Northern mockingbirds, Western gulls, terns

A Little Mainland Action

Oops! Here is a blog entry that I had drafted, but not posted!

Before my surgery in mid-January, Hubby and I decided to do a bit of birding on the mainland. I had heard that the Bolsa Chica Wetlands were great for bird watching, so we headed out there the day before my surgery. The wetlands are managed by the Bolsa Chica Conservancy and are some of the last intertidal wetlands in southern California. See the bottom of this post for a Google Earth image of the wetland and of the birdwatching route that we took.

When we arrived, the parking lot was packed because they were installing a new pedestrian bridge over an inlet that led to a marina. We walked around the intertidal wetlands that are near to the visitors' center, where we saw lots of killdeer and some great egrets. We then checked out the visitors' center, which is small but has a number of taxidermy specimens. Of course, seeing birds close up never gives one an accurate idea of what the bird will look like through one's binoculars -- take the ring-necked duck as one example. If you see a specimen, you can see the burgundy colored ring around the neck, but as a field mark, it's useless. But it was still worthwhile and interesting. There were species lists for birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles available here too.

Hubby and I crossed the inlet via the road (Warner Avenue) and after skirting the heavy machinery and smiling at the construction workers so they wouldn't yell at us, we picked up the trail that takes one along the waterway. To the left were open fields (Canada geese, turkey vulture, sparrows, meadowlarks). The tide was falling and we saw curlew, willets, whimbrels, sandpipers, and snowy egrets. We continued along this path until we got to the bridge that goes across a flood control gate. We did not cross this bridge, but walked along a narrow dike with a channelized waterway to our right and a wetland to our left. More great birds along here!

Altogether, we saw 40 species (and three new lifers: Western sandpiper, Least sandpiper, and California towhee) in two hours of walking -- not bad, even for two fairly mediocre birders. We might have missed some shorebirds, because that's not my strong suit and we didn't have a spotting scope.

Birds seen:
Pied-billed grebe
Western grebe
Double-crested cormorant
Great blue heron
Great egret
Snowy egret
Canada goose
Green-winged teal
Northern pintail
Northern shoveler
American wigeon
Ring-necked duck
Lesser scaup
Bufflehead
Ruddy duck
Turkey vulture
Red-tailed hawk
American kestrel
American coot
Killdeer
American avocet
Greater yellowlegs
Willet
Long-billed curlew
Marbled godwit
Western sandpiper*
Least sandpiper*
Ring-billed gull
Western gull
Forster's tern
Rock dove
Anna's hummingbird
House wren
European starling
California towheee*
Chipping sparrow
Savannah sparrow
Song sparrow
White-crowned sparrow
Western meadowlark

Posts to this Blog (or lack thereof)

As you've noticed (or not), I haven't been hiking much lately. Mark it up to various modes of self-improvement that have taken most of my time...

In January I had surgery to fix my broken guts. Everything went swimmingly (big relief)... Shortly after I was given the green light from my surgeon to resume physical activity, I began to audit a course on conservation genetics which is now taking up most of my time.

I'm hoping to get back to hiking in late March... I'm hoping that it's not too muddy and that I can get to Bulrush Canyon, Lone Tree, or Starlight Beach sometime soon!

Until then, enjoy this picture of shooting stars, which are now blooming in profusion on the island!

Hammocks Hike

Date: 29 December 2009
Who hiked: Me, Hubby, Things 1 and 2
Weather: sunny and clear

Still on Winter Break, we talked Hubby into taking a long lunch one day and hiking to the hammocks with us.

This hike involved tackling Godhilla, which I’ve covered before. We headed up the hill and I actually found it a bit easier than it’s been before. I was a bit surprised, given that I haven’t really been exercising as regularly as I would like, but welcomed it all the same. We have three stopping points on Godhilla, each at relatively flat sections of the trail and I made each of them without much stress. The recent rains made the trail a bit more treacherous – small pebbles and dirt had run down the trail creating a slippery trail, so you couldn't let your mind wander from your footing!

At the top of the hill, the Things immediately rushed down the cutoff trail to get to the hammocks first. This part of the trail cuts across the hill, just below the crest, to meet up with the portion of the trail that returns downhill from the ridge. You walk down that trail to a trail that cuts back across the hill face to the spur that goes down to the hammocks.

The view from the hammocks is outstanding -- have a look the top picture on this post, which was our view.

There are two hammocks strung up in an oak that clings to the edge of the trail and overhangs the slope. You climb up into the tree a bit to get into the hammock, which means that you’re hanging higher in the air than you’d expect. The Things really like to hang out in the hammocks, though there is always much moving around, climbing in, and climbing out of the hammocks which makes Hubby and me nervous. The drop to the ground below is steep and there’s not much to stop one from rolling down the slope except sharp sticks and pointy prickly pear cactus. Thing 1 was quicker to the destination than Thing 2, so he got the primo hammock. This did not go well with Thing 2, who insisted on being allowed into the best seat.

Soon it was time to go home and we navigated the steep slope back to the road by Cat Harbor. This hill is actually worse than Godhilla -- that's why we almost always go down this way instead of up! The tide was very low – probably a spring low tide as we were right around the full moon. I stopped for a bit to look at birds (killdeer, a willet, and two whimbrels) while the boys continued on to home.

Parson's Landing

Date: 27 December 2009
Who Hiked: Me, Hubby, Things 1 and 2
Route: Emerald Bay to Parson's Landing and back
Estimated Distance: 2.4 miles
Weather: cool, cloudy
A few days after Christmas, when the Things' complaints about the newly-received Wii (when can we play? why won't this work? I can't do this!) had resulted in maximal levels of irritation in both parental units, we packed them into the truck and headed off to the west end of the island.
The West End Road is a trip in and of itself: barely 1.5 cars wide and full of hairpin turns, one edge butts against the rocky face of the island, the other edge drops to the ocean below. When you meet another vehicle on the road, you have either wait at a place that is wide enough for the other car to pass or you back up to a place that is wide enough for the two cars to pass. The alternative to patience and cooperation is scraped paint (if you get to close to the island side of the road) or a tumble into the ocean (if you get too close to the seaward edge). Meeting the Catalina Flying Boat panel truck is particularly terrifying.
Given that this was a Sunday, we had no vehicular traffic, though we ran into a few bikers, hikers, and runners. But no worries there -- plenty of room for a car and single-file people on the road!
We parked at the bar gate that blocks the West End Road just beyond Emerald Bay, where there is a large Boy Scout Camp and an environmental education facility called Mountain Sea Adventures.
We then hiked the length of the road beyond the gate to Parson's Landing, a popular camping locale.
The road is more or less flat and is bordered by lemonadeberry and toyon bushes. The lemonadeberry bushes were just setting fruit and the toyon bushes were thick with red berries. And they were all chock full of yellow-rumped warblers.
A trail branches away from the road and provides a shortcut to the beach, so we took this trail. It was surrounded on all sides by fennel, an invasive introduced plant on the island.

I have included a photograph -- all the gray stalks sticking up are fennel plants. In less than a half-mile, we were at Parson's Landing.
We were the only people on the beach this day, not a surprise given the gray weather.
The waves didn't seem too bad and Thing 1 was having fun running out to large rocks when the waves were out and then standing there as the waves swirled in and surrounded his rock. Thing 2 was a bit more timid about joining him, but finally worked up the nerve and ran out to the rock fortress too. Getting braver, Thing 1 ran out to a farther rock, but just then a large swell came onshore and the waves were bigger than he'd expected. Both Things dashed from their rocks to the safety of higher ground... The waves produced by these larger swells were infrequent (about 15 minute intervals), but impressive.


We walked along the beach and then hiked back along another road. This intersected the Trans-Catalina Trail at a couple of locations. At this point on the trail, we were only about 6.5 miles from the trailhead at Starlight Beach. An industrious fox had climbed to the top of one trail sign to mark its territory.
We hiked back to the truck along the road and then braved the West End Road home... and the boys talked about playing Wii for most of the trip.
Other birds seen/heard: Catalina quail, Northern ravens, Northern mockingbirds, House finches

Herman's Trail

Date: 20 December 2009
Who Hiked: Me, Hubby, Things 1 and 2
Route: Herman's Trail & Middle Ranch Road
Time: 1030 to 1330
Estimated Distance: ~5.3 miles
Weather: sunny, mid 70s

The consequence of waiting three weeks to write a blog post about a hike is that I can't remember much about it. I flunk one of the basic rules that every researcher learns: write it all down because you won't remember it later... even though you're SURE you will...

Anyway, the Things are on Winter Break from school, so we decided to get in a couple of family hikes. We have been eyeing this hike for a while. Herman's trail leaves from and returns to Middle Ranch Road, so we decided to hike it as a loop. We drove to the far trailhead and parked, then walked back on Middle Ranch Road to the trailhead that is nearer to Middle Ranch. The road here is nice and flat and we thought it would be a good warm up for the boys (and for us) before we hit the trail proper -- which in good Catalina fashion, heads straight up the freakin' hill.

I don't know who Herman is. It's not a name I have encountered in my reading about the island. If any of my (three) readers know, please send in a comment!

The walk along the road was quite nice, with lots of animal tracks to see (bison, deer, fox, and squirrel) and some acorn woodpecker granaries along the way. Granaries were in a couple of trees, including a large black locust planted just along Middle Ranch Road. We saw plenty of finches, ravens, some warblers, and heard a blue-gray gnatcatcher. We also were lucky enough to see the first California poppy that I've seen this year. This species is not native to the island, but they are pretty flowers and in years with enough rain, they line Middle Ranch Road through Middle Canyon.

At the trailhead, we stopped and had a snack and a drink, then hiked up the ridge. The trail was steep, but not as bad as some other trails we tackle (e.g. Godhilla -- see Hammocks Hike). The trail winds about the crest of the hill, going up and down as it moves from one end to the other. This was not too bad -- as soon as you got tired of going up, there was a (all too) brief respite of downhill hiking to get your legs back under you.

Thing 2 had announced that he was not going to complain on this hike, which was welcome news to his skeptical parents. But he came through on his promise and hiked the entire 5+ miles without a single whine. We were very pleased and enjoyed the hike much more for his enthusiasm. About half way along the ridge portion of the trail we could see the downhill portion of the hike, but couldn't tell exactly where it connected to our ridge trail. We were fooled at least three times -- thinking that the next peak was the final climb, when in fact there were additional summits to tackle. This wasn't a big deal for Hubby, me, or the non-whining Thing, but Thing 1 struggled with the disappointment. I don't think he was tired, so much as irritated. Reality was definitely not meeting his expectations.

Once at the top of the ridge, we were rewarded with a beautiful view of Thompson's Reservoir, with Santa Barbara Island in the distance (about 40 miles away to the northwest). We entertained ourselves on the hike by watching bison on a nearby ridge, betting on the altitude of the next peak (I won! Hit it on the nose!), and talking about Christmas. The Things were very into Christmas, it being only five days away.

We hit the downhill part of the hike and were oh so glad that we had gone the other way -- this sucker was steep steep steep. It went straight downhill, complete with rocks and pebbles that would send you shooting down the hill on your patootie. Thing 2 adopted the strategy of running downhill, which Hubby and I did not deem wise, but he was most of the way downhill before he admitted that he heard us yelling at him to stop.

We all agreed that the hike was a good one -- and hopped in the car to go home. On the way, we encountered a group of about a dozen bison on the Middle Ranch Road. They were walking toward us and stopped when they saw us, annoyed no doubt. There was a bit of a face off, with us looking at them and them looking at us. Hubby would edge forward, and they would stare blankly. I imagine they were thinking, "Hey, get the hell out of the way."
I suggested that we back up, and when we did, the bison began trotting down the road toward us. Turns out they wanted to take a trail that was a bit behind where we had stopped. Soon all twelve bison were up the hill and off of the road and we were on our merry way home.