Hiking the Hills Around Indian Valley College

Our first outing of the spring "semester" was in the open space lands west of Indian Valley College at the end of Ignacio Boulevard in the southern reaches of Novato. After welcoming the new folks joining the Tuesday group, we set off past the school's athletic fields and began a slow climb into the hills. We passed the Pacheco Pond, stopped for lunch in a high meadow with a great view across San Pablo Bay towards Vallejo, and eventually wound our way down to the Indian Valley Fire Road and back to our cars. It was a great day for hiking with a few clouds, but generally sunny skies on the fifth day since the official start of Spring on March 20th. (For another hike description and more photos of the IVC Open Space, check out this page on the "Bay Area Hiker" Web site).

Here's the satellite map of the general area where we hiked. (Click on "View Larger Map" just below this map to access and zoom in and out, left and right, on the on-line Google sap. Better yet, download a free copy of the "Google Earth" software which will let you "tilt" and rotate the 3D map and view it from all angles.


View Larger Map

IVC Open Space Trails and Map

Don and Kay Martin's book Hiking Marin does not have a guide to the specific hike we took, but their hike "EG6 - Waterfall - High Meadows Trails" and the accompanying map (shown below) shows all of the trails in the area we covered on this outing.

Here's Wendy's directions for the actual route we took:

Pacheco Pond Fire Road to and around Pacheco Pond. Waterfall Trail back to IVC Fire Road. Left on IVC Fire Road. Left on Hill Ranch Trail uphill. At a fence with a sign “Erosion Control, Keep Off” Wildcat Trail starts. This becomes Buzzard Burn Fire Road and takes you back down to IVC Fire Road. (NOTE: many trails have no signs at IVC).

Read this doc on Scribd: Indian Valley Open Space Hike and Map

(Click here to view and print out the hike details and map from the Martin book. If you have Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer you can print the document. Once you see the document on the "Scribd" Web site, click on the "Download" icon and then on the "PDF" icon to open the document on your computer).

What We Saw At IVC Open Space

Wendy's tells us about all of the natural world which we saw on our hike in the Indian Valley College Open Space:

FLOWERS

RED

Indian warrior (partially parasitic on madrone and manzanita), SHEEP SORREL (not native, lemony edible leaves)

PINK

TOM CAT CLOVER, PLECTRITIS, HEDGE NETTLE (mint family), field madder, SLENDER PHLOX, dove’s foot geranium (not native), storksbill (not native), shooting stars (pointing up means pollinated), hillside pea

PURPLE/lavender

blue dicks, SKY LUPINE (black dots on white before the flower is pollinated), purple sanicle, wooly vetch (not native), blue eyed grass (Iris family), ground iris, Douglas iris (also saw cream color ones)

YELLOW

buttercups, suncups, SNAKEROOT, lace-leaf sanicle, PRICKLE-SEED BUTTERCUP (not native),

WHITE

fairy bells, milkmaids (4 petals), hairy hog fennel, milkmaids, miner’s lettuce, star lily AKA star of Zigadene. SMALL-FLOWERED NEMOPHILA (same genus as baby blue eyes), NATIVE PLANTAIN (tiny white “Q-tip” but important butterfly host plant), YARROW

BROWN

Mission bells

ORANGE

poppies, sticky monkeyflower (bush)

Also saw leaves of California pipevine, snowberry (shrub), leaves of Pacific star flower, cattails (original disposable diaper).

MISC

Pacific tree frog tadpoles (browner), Western toad tadpoles (blacker), turret spider’s turret

FERNS

BIRDS

Heard: orange crowned warblers (fingers on comb), PACIFIC SLOPE FLYCATCHER (chee-weeep), WARBLING VIREO.

Saw: Red-winged blackbird males, red-tailed hawk, Western bluebird, black phoebe

BUTTERFLIES

SARA ORANGE TIP, California ringlet, veined whites (some puddling), AMERICAN PAINTED LADY, mourning cloak

(Click here if you want to view and print a copy of this list. If you have Adobe Acrobat Reader on your computer you can print the document. Once you see the document on the "Scribd" Web site, click on the "Download" icon and then on the "PDF" icon to open the document on your computer).