From Wildflowers of the Trinity Alps. Photo by Ken DeCamp.
Green plants are considered autotrophs because they photosynthesize—making sugar from water and carbon dioxide. The world of heterotrophic plants is complicated but all have moved away from total energy production from photosynthesis toward obtaining organic carbon either directly from other living beings or through a parasitic relationship with a fungus. Heterotrophic plants include directly parasitic and mycotrophic forms. The conifer forests of the western United States nurture an exceptional diversity of heterotrophic plants and the Klamath Mountains may have the most heterotrophic plants in the western United States!
My elegant crossing Tule Creek. Photo by Josh Smith.
Last weekend, I hiked in Trinity County along a low-elevation, fire-prone section of the Bigfoot Trail between Highway 3 and Hayfork and was able to witness obligate & facultative seeding in action.
One-third of manzanita species are facultative seeders. These are species that regenerate post-fire by both seed and burl resprouting. The remainder are obligate seeders that lose their entire adult population in a fire and depend on a seed bank for regeneration. Obligate seeding is the current model in manzanita evolution.
To understand why, consider the climatic dynamics over thousands, or tens of thousands of years or more. In the case of the resprouting species, particular individuals can live for centuries, resprouting over and over, cloning new individuals as the burls expand with each fire cycle. But in that population, the rate of genetic change is limited, because most individuals live a long time by way of asexual reproduction. This suggests that populations may be unable to respond to rapid climatic changes that might occur in only hundreds of years. The obligate seeders, on the other hand, lose all adults in stand-replacing fires and new post-fire generations have to establish from more genetically diverse seeds. Those populations consequently have greater flexibility to shift and adjust as circumstances require; traits that might have been rare and less important in older generations can emerge through natural selection and become critical in the newer generations within the lifetime of resprouting manzanitas.
Much of this area burned in the summer of 2015. While evidence of the fires were everywhere, there are many signs of the next generation of plants returning to the landscape. This was particularly true on some of the south-facing slopes above Philpot Campground where two species of manzanitas were exploring different reproductive regimes– both obligate & facultative seeding.
Arctostaphylos manzanita is a facultatative seeder. It can resprout by seed but also from dormant buds. When present, these structures are often prominent and are called burls (also ligno tubers)–seen in the middle of the sprouting leaves.
Arctostaphylos canescens is an obligate seeder and does not have a burl. Instead, genetically unique seedlings resprout from a well-stocked seed bank.
Select Forest Pathogens of California’s Klamath Mountains
Forest Pathogens often go unnoticed while exploring, but offer an exceptional window into the intricacies of forest ecology when better understood. I created the free document linked below in 2011 while in Grad School at Humboldt State. Forest Pathology was one of the more interesting classes I took while turning Conifer Country into my thesis for a Master’s Degree in Biology. Most of the information for this document was taken from Terry Henkel’s lecture notes as well as from internet and book sources–all cited within the document. I was recently reminded of this creation because of the October weather that has dropped unprecedented amounts of rain and nurtured fungal growth across Northwest California.
I recently started a citizen science project with 5 classes of high school biology students from Fortuna, California. The plan is to combine their observation skills with the technology offered by iNaturalist. Each month they will visit Rohner Park and record data on a chosen spot in the forest–looking for plants and animals as well as changes in canopy and ground cover. As they become more proficient in species ID, students will also upload observations to our iNatural Project ultimately creating a field guide to their local forest. We all know how much I like field guides…
My plan, over future visits to wilderness areas, is to start similar citizen science projects. The first attempt at this wide-ranging project began this week on a visit to the Bear Peak Botanical Area on the Klamath National Forest. I originally wrote about this area in my book Conifer Country because it is unique in many ways, including the populations of yellow-cedar found here. This species in common further north, but quite rare in California.
Quaking aspens (Populus tremuloides) in the Blackrock-High Rock Desert.
Fall is coming.
For me it is a time of rejuvenation and also my favorite season. With the shift of the California Current, rains begin to fall in California after a summer of drought. The high country along the Pacific Slope finds snow returning. While we retreat inside our homes, native plants and animals must adjust to the changes. Some birds migrate, mammals might hibernate, and some plants shed their leaves and “hibernate” for winter in their own way.
What follows is a journey across the Pacific Slope to four favorite fall hikes–excellent for colorful foliage. I’ve also included some of the plant species that will be found.
Siskiyou Wilderness
Pasayten Wilderness
San Gabriel River National Monument
Blackrock-High Rock Desert National Conservation Area
I was recently asked by KHSU, here in Humboldt County, to write a two minute script for their Sound Ecology series. I chose to write about the conifers of the Klamath Mountains. I hope you enjoy this piece and are planning your next adventure into this botanical wonderland.
Here are the activities I will be a part of in the coming months, please join me!
My first adventure in the Klamath Mountains was in February 2003, several weeks after moving to Humboldt County. Here is an excerpt from the introduction of Conifer Countryabout that trip:
After poring over maps, studying the ridges, passes, and creeks, I filled my backpack with winter gear, food, and a copy of David Rains Wallace’s The Klamath Knot. The adventure was on….The next four days found me spending time staying warm, staying dry, differentiating between the conifers, and reading and re-reading The Klamath Knot. The Knot is a “Klamath cult classic” that weaves the myth of giants with the mysterious quality of ancient forest evolution—surely this was the perfect companion for my first trip in the Siskiyous.
I fell in love with the mountains that fateful February week, deep in the Siskiyous. I read and re-read The Klamath Knot as the rains poured down on me, the nearby creeks swelled, and the mountain passes accumulated snow. I gained a deeper respect and understanding for this wild place too—because of David’s mountain tales that wove natural history and evolution into a place-based book.
Today, it is with great fortune and excitement that I announce to my noble readers that my publishing company, Backcountry Press, is releasing a book by David Rains Wallace. Articulate Earth is a collection of 23 essays written over 30 years of Wallace’s career. The essays explore our relationship with nature—particularly that of the West—in its literary, scientific, and political dimensions. Please support independent publishing by picking up this book from our website or visiting your local independent bookstore—and then referring this book to friends.
Articulate Earth by David Rains Wallace – printing in Humboldt County on recycled paper. Click to learn more.
In 1964 Congress passed The Wilderness Act in a nearly unanimous vote. Though the idea of wilderness was nothing new, its legalized preservation was. The act was meant to acknowledge and define the immediate and lasting benefits of protecting wild places—stating that land shall be set aside for “preservation and protection…so as to remain untrammeled…to retain primeval character…to only be affected by forces of nature…and to guarantee solitude…devoted to un-mechanized public purposes.” I quickly discovered these places were for me—a freedom-loving environmentalist who enjoys unconfined primeval recreation.
Since first exploring the Siskiyou Wilderness in February of 2003, I became convinced that the Klamath Mountain wilderness areas contain some of the wildest and most rugged terrain in the contiguous United States. This is country that is often so steep, and thus spatially isolated, that there are places that have rarely–if ever–been visited by humans. The Klamath Mountains also hold one of the most species-rich temperate forest in North America–with nearly 3,500 taxa documented. The diversity is due to many factors, but in essence it represents a means to appreciate the wildness that has maintained across the numerous sub-ranges in the region. The variable topography, relatively stable climate, and varied soil types have offered (and continue to do so) a refuge for plants to persist or speciate. This is a phenomenon which I am cautiously optimistic will persist into the future, even as climates rapidly change to to human activity–I also beleive this to be true do to the wilderness that is preserved that will help to promote biodiversity. September 3rd, 2014 is the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act – wilderness is a part of me as are these mountains.
The eleven wilderness areas within the Klamath Mountain Province
There are celebrated regions of the Klamath Mountain–preserved and maintained for our enjoyment as monuments or wilderness–and there are others with little or no designation beyond National Forest land. How does the outdoor enthusiast find these little-known places? In the case of the isolated botanical areas of the Scott Mountain Crest, the main route in and out is on the Pacific Crest Trail.
The Pacific Crest Trail contours the eastern ridgeline through the Cory Peak Botanical Area – shown here by Bull Lake – with the Trinity Alps in the background.
Dancing with raindrops from car to porch on any number of oft-spectacular Humboldt Bay days, I was hungry for a lunch date. As I shook my hands dry, the push of a bell initiated the shuffle of feet, a crack of the door—and soon after—a long, sincere, chuckle. The opening door revealed a smile to go with the laughter. It was the same way every time, and I always loved it. John’s spirit was contagious and he always brightened my day.
Hiking on Limestone Ridge in the Trinity Alps Wilderness.
In the late 1960’s, after arriving at Humboldt State University as a new professor, John O. Sawyer received a letter in the mail from G. Ledyard Stebbins. Stebbins, widely regarded as one of America’s leading evolutionary biologists but also a lover of rare plants, suggested to John that he needed to visit a remote place in the Klamath Mountains known as Blake’s Fork. Here, he said, John might help verify a report for one of California’s rarest conifers–the Engelmann spruce. Stebbins hoped John could record his findings in a new database called the Inventory of Rare and Endangered Vascular Plants of California organized by the California Native Plant Society. With conifers calling, John and his friend and co-worker Dale Thornburgh went on a journey that would change our understanding of conifer distributions, plant associations, and wilderness in California.
The heart of the Russian Wilderness and the Miracle Mile, with Russian Peak to the far left. This spiney ridge separates Sugar Creek (left) from Duck Creek (right).
Ecological amplitude is the range of habitats, often dependent on and defined by elevation, within which a certain species has the ability to survive. In the Klamath Mountains there are two species of pines that define the highest elevations–growing at or near the summits of peaks from ~7500′ to 9000′ (The Klamath Mountains get no higher). Foxtail pine (Pinus balfouriana) and whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) inhabit our sky islands where they are the crowning jewels of this coniferous wonderland.
Jeffrey Kane ponders the approach to Box Camp Mountain from the Pacific Crest Trail.
Box Camp Mountain is interesting for several reasons. The first is that its summit is only 7,267′ yet both species of said pines live in this fringe habitat. This is generally on south-facing slopes where lack of competition from firs and hemlocks (which thrive on north-facing slopes) is minimal. When approaching the summit I began to doubt the reports of these pines being here; but in the last few hundred feet they began to appear. Throughout Holocene warming, these two species (and others) have slowly been retreating up regional mountains. Now, after thousands of years, they have reached their ecological climax on Box Camp–there is no more up on which to grow. This mountain holds the most formidably presumptive story I have attempted to read in a high elevation Klamath landscape–and what I read does not appears to have a happy ending.
Our adventure began in the heavy rain of late June. We waved farewell to Allison from the Canyon Creek Trailhead to walk the Bigfoot Trail–in search of wild plants and places–for two weeks. As we climbed into the Trinity Alps it was doubtful we would be able to hike very far because of heavy snow and high water. On our second day, as the rain cleared, we approached the dangerously swift Stuarts Fork and were, for a moment, stopped by Mountains and Water.
Wet weather, heavy snow at the passes, and swift creek crossing typified the first week of hiking through the Trinity Alps, Russian Wilderness, and Marble Mountains. Bottom left is the crossing of Stuarts Fork in the Alps–without that log, the trip would not have happened.
It has been several years since my last visit to Wooley Creek. This was far too long. The Salmon River Country is magical and I was fortunate enough to find some magic this wet northern California weekend when I spent the night along one of my favorite California creeks (Check out Gambolin’ Man’s take on my other favorites). Wooley creek roared as it funneled past the trail and my camp–draining hundreds of square miles of Marble Mountain Wilderness. It would soon enter the Salmon River, briefly, before merging with the mighty Klamath River on its way to the Pacific Ocean. It felt like spring as flowers and bud were popping in the wet (and mildly warm) conditions. The mixed-evergreen forests of the Klamath Mountains are waking up.
During this extended period of phenomenal weather, we packed our weekend bags to rough it on the edge of the Siskiyou Wilderness. Nearly ten years ago to the day, I pursued this route to reach Clear Creek in the wilderness, a new transplant to the Klamath Region. Had I known there was a cabin en-route that I could have rented, on the top of a mountain and in a botanical area no less, I may have never properly understood the hardships that weather in northwest California could offer the winter traveler. On that particular trip I endured snow and rain for four days, alone in Bigfoot country–meeting my first Brewer spruce, Port-Orford cedar, and Darlingtonia. I came in from the wilderness a creature void of form.
However this February 2011 weekend, surrounded by friends, it was mostly sunny with a strong chance of incredible.
Allison braves the cold winds to revel in a sunset over the Pacific Ocean with views to the Siskiyou Wilderness.
Situated on the border of two major rock types, Myrtle Creek Botanical Area is floristically challenging as well as aesthetically arousing due to this unique geological architecture. Along the western slopes of the Myrtle Creek drainage, the North Coast Range meets the Klamath Mountains against an ancient island-arc accretion known as the Josephine Ophiolite. Plant communities are often defined by rock type, and this juncture creates unique plant assemblages. It is a place where complex rock interacts–nutrient rich soils of Coast Range meets the nutrient poor serpentines of the Josephine Ophiolite. It is also a place where ample rain falls, often in the amount of 100 inches per year. Because of these complex abiotic interactions, plants touch roots with plants in associations that almost never occur. For example, redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) grow with pitcher plants (Darlingtonia californica) and western redcedars (Thuja plicata) with knobcone pines (Pinus attenuata).
Historically, the drainage saw major mining operations transform the landscape when placer mining (panning) in the late 1800’s gave way to the more destructive–and potentially more lucrative–hydraulic mining during the early 1900’s. Eventually, all the accessible gold was removed and as the miners left the landscape, it slowly recovered. Today, all that remains from the operations is a major sluice where the trail begins, a ditch upon which the trail is built as well as several old shafts that are fenced in for protection.
The plants have returned and, with a few exceptions, are flourishing. The wildflowers begin in mid-March and continue into early June. Orchids, trilliums, azaleas, rhododendrons, mustards, buttercups, sorrels, wood roses, huckleberry, and more create a rare botanical legacy of unique associations–ready for exploration and self-discovery. Located within the Smith River National Recreation Area, the trail has interpretive signs to aid your discoveries along the 1+ miles to the creek.
Map to Myrtle Creek Botanical Area in the Six Rivers National Forest.
Brook wakerobin (Pseudotrillium rivale)
Myrtle Creek
Darlingtonia californica (by Allison Poklemba)
Pictured above is California pitcher plant (Darlingtonia californica) growing on serpentine, which is not unusual in Del Norte County. What is unusual is that along Myrtle Creek it associates with salal (Gaultheria shallon) which is in the picture and growing just above–casting shade–is a redwood tree.
Anemone quinquefolia
Other Resources:
North Coast CNPS Page for Myrtle Creek Botanical Area
—– COMMENT: AUTHOR: Sue DATE: 4/24/2014 4:18:08 PM You said: “… a ditch upon which the trail is built…” This was no ditch, but a carefully constructed Chinese Footpath – the kind a person would see in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, or other Asian rainforest areas. In addition to a mining camp was a Chinese labor camp. They built the footpath – which used to extend from near the falls to what is now hwy 199. I have taken several Vietnam Veterans on this trail, and they are all amazed at the similarity between this “ditch” (as you call it) and trails they saw while in Vietnam. These Chinese trails are noted by drainage area on the ‘mountain’ side of the trail, and a berm on the “creek” side of the trail. This construction helps keep the trail intact despite wet weather. Unfortunately, after over 150 years, there have been some serious mudslides along the creek that covered portions of the footpath – making it very difficult to get to the falls. There are still gold mining claims along the creek, and in the past, these mining claims have been protected with rifles. But not any more. I love this creek, have hiked it for 40 years, and treasure the botanical life. But a well-maintained trail would be nice. I would love to be able to hike to the falls again on a real trail.
Sue- Thanks for the comment. Sounds like you have a great understanding and appreciation for this wonderful creek canyon. I am sorry if I offended you by calling it a ditch, I know better now! -Michael
Surely one of the most beautiful rivers in the state of California, this wild and untraveled stretch of the South Fork Trinity River is a special place to visit. South Fork Road ends 11 miles from where it begins at the junction of the South Fork and Main Fork, and for over 10 miles, runs wild and free from human disturbance–upstream to the isolated hamlet of Hyampom. The entire South Fork of the Trinity River is designated as wild and scenic, but the Hell’s Half Acre section is the epitome of this wild and scenic designation.
