Zim Zim Creek

Today, I decided to explore the furthest northeast reach of Napa County, an area I have never traveled to in my 35 years of living in Napa. In the past, this area has been the domain of various combinations of gun nuts, hunters, off-roaders, and boozers . More recently, much of the area has been closed to vehicles and is now designated as The Knoxville Wildlife Area. It is an important corridor for wildlife such as bears, mountain lions, and eagles. The area contains important and threatened habitat types including oak woodlands and serpentine chaparral. The trail I took was a six mile out and back on Zim Zim Creek.

Hard to tell unless you click on the photo, but this is a human assisted eagle nest off of the Berryessa Knoxville Road.

On the same road was this unfortunate rattlesnake.

Zim Zim Creek was mostly dry. This area would be in its glory in the spring.

The area was also very desolate - I never saw another person the whole time on the trail.

Here are the remains of an old cabin about 3 miles in.


Where's Bambi?



Another view of this rugged land.


Lake Berryessa looking quite sedate, about 8 miles south of Zim Zim creek. Hasta luego.

Trail Time With Nick

Yesterday, Nick and I did some hiking through Skyline Park. Hiking with Nick is a pleasure. He notices things that most people overlook and is always raising questions. We examine tiny tracks, pick through scat to see "what was at", marvel at the bark patterns on trees, and stop to smell and taste various leaves, nuts, and berries. Tiring of saying "I don't know", and having gotten caught in some half truths, my standard answer now is, "We'll have to Google that."

These tracks puzzled us, but upon seeing the photos with my glasses on, and researching the web, our best guess is opossum. It looks like a tail was dragging on the ground between the little footprints. There were smaller versions of this nearby which must have been babies.

We determined that poison oak has no enemies.

This old oak had a large hole right through its trunk. We wondered why some trees seem to carry on despite serious injury, and others just die or fall over for no apparent reason. Hmmm.

The berries on this bush reminded me of the neon colored salmon eggs I used to fish with as a kid.

Alas, the furrowed bark on this old valley oak started me pondering about dermatology. It is interesting, none the less, and also reminds me of an owl.

Been Gone Too Long

I have been gone a lot this summer, first a trip to New England and then an extended stay with my aging parents. I am back to my normal jaunts in the hills this week, but I've decided to cut back on driving to the more distant areas. I had a nice morning hike on Wednesday. There were a lot of deer, and I couldn't resist a photo of this group. I love the way their big ears rotate to pick up the slightest sounds.