One of my favorite projects ever. (Now, a thread.)
A mountain lion sighting is what drew my eye to this little arroyo I didn't know existed before. You might say I became a bit obsessed. You would be making an understatement. I've been in here nearly every day since. In exploring it, I discovered a lot of things including remnants of trail and animal paths buried under overgrowth which I stitched together to create a short flowy trail on. The idea evolved to follow the channel closely so you could see the mini seasonal superbloom there. In particular, it was the biggest stand of Seep Monkeyflowers I've seen on the plateau and there was a small Hedgenettle meadowy area. It was full of pollinators. I've been posting some of these things for about a year now. First on pixelfed, now on Vernissage.
https://vernissage.photos/@EricBono@beige.party
https://pixelfed.social/EricBono
It's really hard to see here but water flowed a bit in the rain past few days, moving some of the plant debris, and started to clump around rocks I had moved out of the trail. It's an idea to slow flash flooding, create little damming and terracing effects in the arroyo channel and it's working! It's very sensitive habitat but I hope to facilitate the wildflowers in here to spread out even further. It was previously very hard-packed dirt, smooth, and water would not linger so much. The wildflowers that will pop up here are adapted to thrive from the underground springs and water just below the soil in these arroyos I hadn't realized existed. A lot of layers to this make it too complex to sum up here. Anyhow, you can see some of the material collecting around the rocks.
Petey for scale.
#Trails #Hiking #Dogs #MountainBiking #Mountains #SouthernCalifornia #California #GravelBiking #Cycling #TrailRestoration #TrailDesign #TrailMaintenance #Wildflowers #Wildlife