Northern California's Best-Kept Secret: Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in Pictures | Link TV
Title
Northern California's Best-Kept Secret: Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in Pictures
-
Chris Clarke
Chris Clarke was KCET's Environment Editor until July 2017. He is a veteran environmental journalist and natural history writer. He lives in Joshua Tree.
California wasn't always shaped the way it is today. For millions of years it was open ocean. Then, a chain of islands, large ones and small ones, slammed head-on (though painfully slowly) into the continent, adding themselves to the west coast of North America.
The result: California is a patchwork of geology from different times and places, which drifted up onto the coast piece by piece to make the state we know today. And nowhere in Northern California is that patchwork more wonderfully expressed than in Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument.
The 330,780-acre Berryessa Snow Mountain, established in July 2015 by President Barack Obama under the Antiquities Act of 1908, stretches across parts of seven different counties north of San Francisco Bay. It's the closest large patch of protected land to millions of people in the Bay Area, and might as well be in Sacramento's backyard. And yet, oddly in a state where pilgrimages to Yosemite and other parks are almost a sacred obligation, the majority of Northern Californians haven't even heard of Berryessa Snow Mountain, let alone been anywhere near the place.
Despite its proximity to some of California's oldest cities, however, this swatch of landscape in the inner coast ranges bears remarkably few traces of modern society. Though roads provide ready access to many parts of the Monument, and ranchers' fences still limit access in other places, much of Berryessa Snow Mountain is largely as it was when the area's eight different Native nations shaped the landscape — though a century of fire suppression has made its mark.
Given the Monument's location at the edges of several distinct regions and the area's abundant microclimates, landscapes there range from verdant conifer woodlands interspersed with wet meadows, to the region's emblematic open oak savannas:
... to one of the habitats that makes Berryessa Snow Mountain the botanical hotspot it is: serpentine "barrens."
National Monuments under threat
Serpentine barrens are anything but. Formed from minerals scraped off the Earth's mantle by tectonic activity when they come into contact with water, serpentine — California's state mineral — forms soils that are loaded with toxic amounts of nickel, cobalt, chromium, and iron, but deficient in important plant nutrients like phosphorus and potassium.
That makes serpentine soils inhospitable to many plants.
But some plants, which have evolved tolerance for serpentine's load of heavy metals, thrive there in the absence of competition. They make serpentine barrens not all that barren.
Not that Berryessa Snow Mountain-s non-serpentine flowers are particular slouches in the beauty department.
You won't be the only species there enjoying those wildflowers, incidentally.
And lest you think sundown means an end to seeing beauty in this Northern California gem, you should know the Monument boasts some of the darkest skies in Northern California.
The Department of the Interior is seeking public comment on the benefits any or all of the national monuments on the chopping block. You can submit comments through http://www.regulations.gov by entering “DOI-2017-0002” in the Search bar and clicking “Search,” or send them by mail to the following address:
Monument Review, MS-1530
U.S. Department of the Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20240
The deadline for comments is July 10.
Banner: Goldfields against a verdant hillside backdrop at Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument | Photo: Gary Ford, some rights reserved
Support the Articles you Love
We are dedicated to providing you with articles like this one. Show your support with a tax-deductible contribution to Link TV. After all, public media is meant for the public. It belongs to all of us.
-
About the Author
Chris Clarke
Chris Clarke was KCET's Environment Editor until July 2017. He is a veteran environmental journalist and natural history writer. He lives in Joshua Tree.
Keep Reading
-
“Bridges in a Time of Walls: Mexican/Chicano Art from Los Angeles to Mexico” is a wide-ranging, multigenerational and rare exhibit of Chicano artwork in Mexico’s capital.
-
California history, much like that of America’s, rests on the noblest of deeds, the most nefarious of acts and a sea of grey in between, all driven by the very dreams that fuel boom and bust cycles.
-
For decades, visitors to Yosemite witnessed the Firefall, a shimmering curtain of glowing embers and hot coals cascading to the valley floor. The tradition highlights the competition that existed between the state’s earliest entrepreneurs.
-
The optimistic essence of the California's golden dream endures — as it should — but the future of the state depends on Californians dreaming differently.
- 1 of 27
- next ›
Comments