Tales from the Semi-Super-Bloom Tour, Part 4: Into the Realm of Demons, the Red Hills

Human mythology finds bigger meanings in everyday stories, i.e. vast battles fought in the heavens, on earth, and in the depths below pitting light against darkness, fire against ice, and good against evil. In many ways, the myths reflect the seasons, with the richness of spring and summer contrasted with the dying and death of fall and winter. That's what I was thinking about when we made a trip this week up to the Red Hills Area of Critical Environmental Concern in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The trip was another stage in our Semi-Super-Bloom Tour, our effort to visit some of the less heralded places in California where the "Super-Bloom" was not quite as spectacular (and therefore less crowded).

We had been here some weeks back, but the spring wildflowers were only just beginning to show up. And when we arrived this week, most of the flowers were already dying back and going to seed. But there was still color hanging on here and there, especially where water was still providing the gift of continued life. It reminded me of mythical legends of latter ages when the glories of the past were still remembered, but the power and majesty of said civilizations was waning, and facing climactic battles against the forces of darkness that threatened to overwhelm all.

Really...wilting flowers make me think that way...

I imagine that it is really stretching metaphors and symbolism, but these fragile flowers are truly facing a horrific test of their ability to survive. The Red Hills take their name from the serpentine soils that weather reddish brown. The soils are poor in necessary nutrients, and rich in metals and other chemicals that are toxic to most plants. Even the name of the host rock, serpentinite, recalls ghastly mythical animals like giant snakes and dragons.

And there is an additional curse: the climate. Rain falls only in the winter and spring (most years anyway), and when the rainstorms stop, they stop entirely, for six months or more. The land bakes in 90-100 degree temperatures throughout the summer and into the fall. Life struggles to exist in this harsh environment.

And yet life does persist. The flowers rush to maturity, doing everything they can to reach maturity and produce seeds before the dryness takes life away once again. And during those short weeks, the slopes are wild with beautifully colored wildflowers. The darkness and fire for a brief moment are forgotten.

The rocks themselves that make up the bedrock of the Red Hills are truly from the realms of demons and devils. The serpentine and other ultramafic (extremely rich in iron and magnesium) rocks originated deep in the underworld that exists beneath the Earth's crust, at depths of 20 miles or more (a layer called the mantle). The rocks were carried towards the surface along huge fault systems and subjected to the reactions of extremely hot chemical-rich water and intense pressure. The rocks have been sheared and twisted to the point of being unrecognizable. Although the rocks rarely contained gold, they are closely associated with the gold-bearing ores found nearby.

The Red Hills were once reviled as was befitting of an infertile barren landscape, a landscape blasted by heat and drought. Off-road vehicle trails scarred the landscape, and some locals used the area as a dumping ground or as a shooting gallery. The land was owned, but ignored, by an agency of the federal government, the Bureau of Land Management. The BLM grew out of the efforts to give lands away under the auspices of the Homestead Act in the late 1800s. The problem was that no one wanted the lands held in many areas, so the BLM eventually became the custodian of something like 250 million acres, mostly across the western United States.

As attitudes evolved regarding land-use and ecosystems, many BLM-managed lands came to be appreciated for their biological and geological values. More and more of these "abandoned" lands were transformed into more than 200 wilderness areas and nearly 30 became national monuments. The Red Hills properties were not roadless enough to be considered as wilderness, and neither the president nor Congress ever considered it for national monument status (although I don't think it would be a bad idea). Instead, when local communities began to advocate for protection of the Red Hills for their scientific and recreational values, the BLM responded by designating 7,000 or so acres as the Red Hills Area of Critical Environmental Concern. Despite the clumsy title, the designation protects the hills from off-road vehicle use, dumping, and shooting. And during the late winter and spring, tens of thousands of people will visit the site. There are minimal developments, a pit toilet, a parking area, and a series of roads and trails that provide access to much of the "park".

The explosion of vegetation in the spring attracts insects and animals. During our trip, we saw a number of birds, including California Quail and Bullock's Orioles. They added an additional splash of color to this fascinating landscape. It was an interesting day in the realm of the devils and demons of the underworld.

Tales From the Semi-Super-Bloom Tour, Part 3: On the Road to Yosemite

Mrs. Geotripper and I didn't see the legendary "Super-Bloom" in Southern California. We didn't have the time or patience to deal with the crowds and trampling and helicopter landings in fields of flowers. We instead set out to find the evidence of spring in some less heralded and less crowded places that were perhaps not in a state of a once-in-a-decade superbloom, but showed some delightful color nonetheless. At the end of March it was the Mojave Desert and Death Valley National Park. Then a week ago we headed up to Yosemite Valley.

Yosemite Valley is just coming out of the throes of winter, so we weren't expecting any flowers there, and as such we were not disappointed. But our journey from the floor of the Great Valley and through the Merced River Valley provided us with an explosion of color. The prairies east of Merced and Planada were rich with Blue Dicks.

We climbed into the foothills and made a brief stop in Midpines where we saw these Baby Blue Eyes (above), and blooming Redbuds that aren't exactly really red.

Our road dropped into the canyon of the Merced River, and we followed the swollen river upstream. As we approached the village of El Portal, the flowers grew thick along the slopes. Golden Poppies were common, offset against the somber metamorphic rocks of the Shoofly Complex.

I've seen Golden Poppies growing in a wide variety of habitats throughout California, from high mountain slopes to deep forests to desert plains. No wonder they were declared our state flower.

We turned a corner and were greeted by slopes covered with purple lupines and Golden Poppies.

It's not a "super-bloom", it's merely a drought-free spring. But spring in the Merced River canyon is a colorful affair. It's a privilege to live close enough to see these beautiful slopes.

Harbingers of Spring at the Red Hills Area of Critical Environmental Concern

It used to be a "junk" landscape...the kind of place where locals dumped their garbage and shot up old cars. Off-road vehicles ran roughshod over the relatively barren slopes. It wasn't private property. It was owned by the federal government, specifically the Bureau of Land Management, whose original goal was to give the land away, but in the end no one wanted it. The land, with poor soils nearly useless for agriculture, languished.

But times and attitudes change. There was a reason for the poor nutrient levels in the soils, and why grass, that would have at least allowed for grazing, failed to thrive. The underlying bedrock was composed of ultramafic rocks like serpentine, dunite and peridotite. The rocks are rich in iron and magnesium, with significant amounts of toxic elements like nickel or chrome. Only the hardiest of plants can tolerate these chemical conditions, although there are a few that can thrive in this harsh environment. When the ultramafic rocks are weathered, the iron is released to react with oxygen in the atmosphere to form natural rust minerals like hematite and limonite. The brightly colored soils earned the locality its name, the Red Hills. They form the ridges west of Chinese Camp in the Sierra Nevada Mother Lode between Highways 108 and 132.

By the 1990s public efforts to protect and preserve the unique biology and geology of the region succeeded when the BLM declared 7,100 acres of the region (about 11 square miles) an Area of Critical Environmental Concern. Trash and garbage were removed, trails were laid out, and a parking area constructed. Regulations limited off-road use and target shooting. The region finally received the recognition it needed.

The "park" includes seven very rare species of plants, including two endemics, species found nowhere else in the world (the Red Hills Vervain, and the Red Hills Ragwort). The unique nature of the flora is immediately apparent when approaching the area from the west. The environment of scattered oaks and widespread grasslands gives way abruptly to Buckbrush and Gray Pines. Grass is practically non-existent, unable to thrive on the poor soils. The region has a decidedly barren look.

But then the rains arrive. In the late winter and early spring, the wildflowers burst forth in a display of bright colors. Wildflowers in other parts of the Mother Lode are often hidden by the high-growing grasses. With grass a much diminished species, the wildflowers blaze forth.

We went up into the Red Hills today to see how things have progressed now that we've had a wet year. It's a bit early, but a fair number of flowers were visible on the slopes, including Monkey Flower, Golden Poppy, Brodiaea, and Five-spot. The lichens provided even more color.

The intermittent creek running along the main road through the park sported a healthy flow of water allowing us a chance to see the other unique species in the ACEC: the Red Hills Roach (Lavinia symmetricus), which is a fish, not a bug.

The Red Hills Roach is a subspecies of the California Roach, a member of the minnow family. It's only found in a few drainages within the ACEC and nowhere else in the world. The streams run dry for much of the year, but small seeps and springs maintain permanent pools where a few fish can survive. There were serious concerns about whether the fish would be able to survive the horrific drought of the last decade, but they managed as they have through time.

I got a poor picture of one of the roaches, but a teaching colleague of mine, Ryan Hollister, has posted some underwater shots of the fish on the move.


The Red Hills are wet from months of above-average rainfall, and the plants are growing fast, and will be blooming in profusion in the next few weeks. If you can spare a moment, head into the hills and give the ACEC a chance to impress. It is a truly unique environment found nowhere else in the world.

In the Red HIlls Area of Critical Environmental Concern, a Promise of Spring (and a rare fish)

We saw exactly two poppies blooming. In a few weeks there will be thousands.

It has a clumsy name that only a bureaucrat could love, but the Red Hills Area of Critical Environmental Concern is a fascinating place in the Sierra Nevada Mother Lode. It was for decades a sullied hidden treasure, used for dumping and target shooting. But as biologists and geologists started to study the region, they found a unique biological island in the normally oak-studded woodlands of the Mother Lode.

The uniqueness of the area was tied to the underlying soil, developed on the serpentine and ultramafic rocks of the Foothills Terrane, slices of the ocean crust and rocks from deep in the Earth's mantle that had been added to the western edge of North America some 200 million years ago. Serpentine soils lack many of the nutrients required by "normal" plants like grass and oak, but are loaded with metals that are actually poisonous to plants as well. Plants that survive in this strange other-worldly land have to be tolerant of this harsh chemical environment.  Some of them are very rare, and a few are endemic, found nowhere else in the world. Because of the prevalence of iron, the soils are usually a deep reddish brown, giving the hills their name.

This was the single Monkey-flower we found. There will be many more!

The delineation is sharp. When one turns off of LaGrange Road onto Red Hills Road one sees oak woodlands and open fields thick with grass. But only about a mile in, the oak and grass suddenly give way to Ceanothus shrubs and Gray Pine. Grass is almost nonexistent, with various flower species making up the ground cover. Much of the year the ground cover is dead and dry, but for a few weeks in the spring, the hills burst into color, and there is a spectacular show of wildflowers, dominated by Monkey-flowers and Poppies.

February was an incredibly dry month, no doubt delaying the onset of the spring flower show, but the heavy rains of March have left the soils wet, and sprouts are popping up everywhere. We were there today to look things over, and we could see that land is about to burst forth in another week or two.

I wandered over to the creek to see if the fish were around. The Red Hills host a rare and endangered subspecies of the California Roach, the Red Hills Roach (Lavinia symmetricus). The fish were for a short time thought to be extinct when the extended drought dried up the intermittent creeks that they called home. But a few spring-fed pools persisted during the driest times, and the fish are doing okay.

They were in a frenzy of feeding or breeding, or just doing some heavy partying when I found them. I caught some video below. All in all, life is returning in the foothills during these brief weeks before the hot dry times come again all too soon.

Happy Easter, all!

A Fleeting Spring in the Sierra Nevada Foothills: The Red Hills Area of Critical Environmental Concern

There was actually a bit of rain today in central and northern California. It wasn't much, barely getting the ground wet in the valley, and maybe a quarter of an inch in the Sierra Nevada foothills, but it was the first storm in many weeks, and there is a promising storm rolling in on Tuesday. Not a drought-breaker, but it will be one of the few cold arctic storms we've had all winter, expected to drop as much as foot of snow at higher elevations. Again, not nearly enough, but a brief respite from the unseasonably warm weather of the last two months.

We headed into to the foothills for a brief look at the spring wildflowers. There weren't many expected, so we weren't disappointed, but there were a few patches here and there of color, and if I held the camera just right, it could look like a normal spring bloom. But the dryness lies beyond the edges of each flower picture.

The Red Hills Area of Critical Environmental Concern is a several square mile area owned by the federal Bureau of Land Management. For years it was ignored, and used for dumping, shooting, and off-road vehicle travel. Somewhere along the line, someone realized that the serpentine soils of the "wasteland" were harboring a large number of rare and endemic species of plants and animals. The rock was the reason. Serpentine is the metamorphic product of peridotite, an olivine-rich rock more normally found deep in the Earth's mantle.

When the rock weathers to soil, the soil is poor in some critical nutrients, and overly rich in some metals that most plants can't tolerate. Among these plants are the invasive grasses that have overwhelmed many other ecosystems in California. Oaks don't grow well in the soils either. The lack of grass allows the serpentine-tolerant plants to thrive, at least when there is water.

Golden Poppies and Monkey Flowers do especially well, along with several varieties of Lupine.

The soil was very dry and the few flowers that were able to bloom this year were already fading. I hope the big storm Tuesday helps a little. The bugs need a hand.