A Glorious Spring Hike Above The College (March 24)

While Spring began on Saturday with a wet and rainy day, followed by blustery winds on Sunday and Monday, Tuesday was just, Spring, Spring, Glorious Spring! And on our inaugural Spring College of Marin hike there not a cloud in the sky and only a few wisps of a breeze now and again.

After greeting the "Old Timers" and "Newcomers" at Lot#7 at the Indian Valley campus of the College of Marin and checking out bird and plant books for what we might see during the outing, we headed off around 10 a.m., walked past the baseball field, and hiked up the fire road to the old Pacheco Ranch pond. We paused along the shore of this liliputian lake for a history lesson from Wendy about the family that sold part of its lands for the college campus. Then we veered off to the right and began ascending thorough a mixed forest of Bay, Oak and Madrone on the Waterfall Trail which loops uphill for another half mile or less, then drops back down to the Indian Valley Fire Road. Wildflowers were abundant along the trail, butterflies flitted by us, and vireos chattered away, unseen, in the tree tops.

Instead of continuing back down the Waterfall Trail, we switched trails after passing over the crest of the ridge an hour into the hike and descended on the Jack Burgi Trail, then turned left and crossed the creek on to the Clark Melone Trail and followed that until we hit the fire road about noon. After a few minutes walk northward on the road we hit the other end of the Waterfall Trail and began clomping uphill once again.

During our outings in February and early March, the creeks were roaring down the hillsides. Today, the streams were almost silent. Mushrooms, popping up around every corner during Fall and Winter, were not to be seen. And unless we get April showers, the green, green hills of Marin will soon be fading into the yellow and brown tones of Summer.

As we traversed the Susan Alexander Trail, dinner bells were going off in our stomachs. About twenty minutes past the noon hour, we reached a broad, grassy meadow ringed with oak trees and plopped down for lunch. A Red Breasted Sapsucker flew across the meadow and landed in a nearby tree for his mid-day meal of tasty bugs.

Although a postprandial nap in the shade of a big tree would have been delightful, we were back on the trail after half an hour, heading upward for another ten minutes or so until we reached the junction with the Hill Ranch Trail. Along the way we had views eastward to San Francisco Bay and the hills beyond. Indian Warriors thronged under the madrone trees lining this section of the trail.

Moseying down the sometimes steep trail for another half hour or so brought us back to the Indian Valley Fire Road with less than a mile to go until we reached our cars. Along the way we stopped to search in vain for newt larvae, but found tree frog and bullfrog tadpoles doing "swimmingly" in one of the vernal ponds along the fire road. (Click here for Wendy's list of flora and fauna we spotted on this hike).

(Some of these trails we followed are not shown in the Martins' book, Hiking Marin; click here for a map of the Open Space Preserve that shows all of the trails we took on this hike). Theresa's GPS calculated the hike length at 4.6 miles. The Google Earth image below shows our route. (Click on the photo to open a larger image in your Web browser).


The vertical elevation graphic shows to two steep ascents and descents we made. (For some reason, the profile indicates that we started off below sea level!). (Click on the profile to open a larger image in your Web browser).