We
made it the whole way, all in daylight! (:-)
Walt Fidler,
Jim Roberts, and I hiked from the Fages Monument just above Lake
Cuyamaca at 4700 feet, down the California Riding and Hiking Trail,
which mostly is the Mason Valley Truck Trail, to the junction of S2
and Hornblende Canyon at 2400 feet elevation. Our total hiking
distance was 9.1 miles, with ~500 feet of total elevation gain and
~2800 feet of total elevation loss. And we did it all in
daylight, starting our hike at 11:45 a.m. (;-)
This
was pretty mind-boggling to me, to hike from the mountain crest in
this area down to the desert floor. I've always wanted to do a
hike like this here!
Walt and I averaged 1.6 mph,
finishing at 5:45 p.m., taking six hours to do the hike.
Per
the original plan, we all hiked together until the halfway point at
3:00 p.m., at which point Jim went ahead at a faster pace so that he
wouldn't have so much night-time driving to do. Jim really
hustled downhill after we parted, averaging 2.7 mph and got to
Hornblende at 4:35 p.m. I looked at his footprints on the
ground as we hiked and was amazed at his stride length.
Here
are some Google Earth views showing our route:
Our path
on the satellite view, with the elevation profile and our
~instantaneous hiking speed vs. distance:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/gearth/gearth_route_profile_speed.png
The main reason for the slower sections is due to the
steepness of the dirt road in those places and tricky footing (see
pix linked below). Over most of the middle of our hike, this
was not a high-speed road. Even the flatter sections there had
lots of cobblestones slowing us down.
The view from
7900 feet elevation, above a point to the south of our route, looking
mostly north, showing the uppermost part of our route in profile
view:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/gearth/gearth_route_view_to_north.PNG
The same view with a number of nearby locations
labeled:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/gearth/gearth_route_view_to_north_label.PNG
Now a view looking south from 10,000 feet elevation
somewhere above the Banner area, giving better visibility into lower
Oriflamme Canyon:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/gearth/gearth_route_view_to_south.PNG
A view of our entire route, from 9000 feet
elevation above Blair Valley, looking mostly west:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/gearth/gearth_route_view_to_west.PNG
It was a good time of year to do this hike, since
we weren't slowed down by a lot of plants in bloom. Jim and I
were quite surprised at how few blooms (just 5 to 10 species) there
were in the first section near Fages, especially compared to the 44
species we saw in bloom at the same elevations in the uppermost Mason
Valley Truck Trail a few weeks earlier.
The lower part of
our hike did have a lot of plants in nice bloom, but the species
diversity of the blooming plants was not high.
Our
main botanical goal on this trip was to record the first location of
desert species on the way down, which gives both the westernmost
occurrence of those species in this area, as well as their highest
elevations. That hardly slowed us down much, since it just
involved taking a photograph or two.
It turns out that
the highest elevation of those species was spread out all along our
route, once again showing that our desert species are a mixture of
species with very different tolerances for higher elevation.
Here are all those "highest elevation" points for desert
species, one point per species, plotted on the topo map of the
portion of our route in which they were found, as well as on the
elevation profile of our route:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/route_topo_elevation_profile_highest_occurrences.PNG
There is no doubt that some points are clustered
together when we encountered a different habitat that was favored by
multiple species, and that some areas with a very uniform habitat
(mostly chamise chaparral) had no or few "highest elevation"
occurrences. But it is pretty amazing that points were found
throughout the descent part of our route.
This is quite
consistent with the elevation analysis of the Borrego Desert plants
that I did back in 2014:
Preliminary Analysis of
Elevations of the Species in the Flora
http://tchester.org/bd/analysis/elevations.html
Details:
Jim and
Tom posted
32
obs of 29
species:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?on=2022-10-21&place_id=any&user_id=jimirob1,tchester
Those
numbers include a baby horned lizard spotted by Walt, which has an
obscured location. If you can't see it at the link above, here
it is:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/139659443
I haven't posted any obs, since I spent my time in
the last two days doing the elevation analysis mentioned above,
processing my view pix, and writing this report.
Plants
looked pretty much the same bloom-wise on my drive in as they did
last Monday 10/17/22.
I got to Hornblende at about
10:45 a.m. Jim and Walt were already there. We left there
around 11:00 a.m. to do the car shuttle.
It took
about 40 minutes to do the car shuttle, and we started hiking at
11:45 a.m., giving us a 15 minute head-start over the planned start
at noon.
The temperature was 70 deg at Fages, which
matched two of the three different NWS predictions (made for today on
different days) for the temp there. (:-) The temp when we
entered Mason Valley at about 4:30 p.m. was 82 deg, exactly that
predicted by NWS.
We were shocked at the low
stature of the plants along the first part of the CA R&H trail;
it was like they had been mowed, or eaten down by cows, but we saw no
evidence of either. I didn't even recognize the Grindelia
hallii at first, since the flowers were almost at ground level, with
very little of the plant showing.
Also, as mentioned
above, the number of species in bloom was almost an order of
magnitude less than at the upper end of the Mason Valley Truck Trail
(MVTT). This was due to a corresponding lack of diversity in
the species there. This lack of diversity was probably due to
several factors, including:
- the habitat here was a very
uniform grassland, in very flattish terrain. The habitat at the
upper end of the MVTT was oak woodland, with more topographical
relief, and more varied hydrology.
- past historical use
by people and animals.
We essentially stopped only
for plants in bloom at first. Since there were so few, we made
very good time in the first part, averaging 2.0 mph up to mile 3.6.
At that point, the MVTT descends sharply, with poor footing, dropping
our average speed to close to 1.0 mph up to mile 4.6.
At
about that point, we also started recording the first occurrence of
desert species, and our speed averaged 1.7 mph from mile 4.6 to mile
6.5.
Our speed kept increasing past that point as we
found fewer species to photograph, and the road got better to walk
on, from 2.2 mph (2.0 to 2.5 mph) to mile 7.7, and then 3.0 mph (2.5
to 3.5 mph) to mile 8.3.
In Mason Valley, just
before the CA R&H Trail left the Oriflamme Road to go to Box
Canyon, there were quite a few Funastrum heterophyllum (= F.
cynanchoides hartwegii) seeds scooting along the ground at a fairly
good pace with just a very gentle wind, with one seed sailing above
my head. Jim has a nice pix of a seed pod showing some of the
seeds with their fluff:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/139667925
Some view pix by me unless stated otherwise:
View
of upper Mason Valley TT and surrounding area at 12:39 p.m.:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/views/pano_from_upper_mason_vtt_1239_2_30.jpg
View of the flat part in the middle of our hike,
with Oriflamme Canyon at right of middle, at 12:41 p.m.:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/views/pano_from_upper_mason_vtt_1241_1_30.jpg
View looking back at the upper mason valley TT,
from the flat part in the middle of our hike, at 1:46 p.m.:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/views/pano_from_upper_mason_vtt_1346_3_30.jpg
View of lower Oriflamme Canyon from the flat part
at 1:49 p.m.:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/views/view_oriflamme_canyon_1349_2_30.jpg
The beginning of the very steep part beginning the
descent into Oriflamme Canyon, at 2:03 p.m.:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/views/view_steep_part_1403_2_30.jpg
The walls above our path get taller as we continue
the descent. Pix by Jim at 2:15 p.m.:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/views/roberts/tom_walt_hiking_down_road_1415.jpeg
Entering the bank of Oriflamme Canyon, at 2:22
p.m.:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/views/pano_entering_lower_oriflamme_canyon_1422_2_30.jpg
View of lower Oriflamme Canyon, at 2:41 p.m.:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/views/pano_lower_oriflamme_1441_1_30.jpg
Near the bottom of Oriflamme Canyon, near the
camping area where there is year-round water, at 3:48 p.m.:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/views/pano_lower_oriflamme_camping_area_1548_1_30.jpg
Finally, the road allows high-speed walking as we
enter Mason Valley, at 4:36 p.m.:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/views/pano_entering_mason_valley_1636_1_30.jpg
A not very good photo looking back at the Laguna
crest, at 5:56 p.m., from Hornblende:
http://tchester.org/temp/221021/views/pano_looking_where_we_came_from_1756_1_30.jpg
--
tom
chester
