As part of its Celebration of Trails, Bear Yuba Land Trust (BYLT) was offering guided hikes on Saturday, one of which was to Chalk Bluff Preserve. Jimmy and I were interested -- we'd heard about Chalk Bluff, but we'd never been and didn't really know where it was or how to get there. Turns out the bluff wasn't that far away as a crow flies, but having a 4-wheel drive vehicle would be an asset, as it's in the boonies and getting there was another story. A small group of ten met at the local Safeway parking lot at 9am, and one couple (Nancy and Dan) had room in their Subaru for me and Jimmy, so we left Smartie behind. We much appreciated the ride.
Do you see the white/ish line running horizontally near the bottom of yonder hill? That's the chalk bluff, which we'd explore today. Below that is what's left of the almost-ghost town of You Bet, established in 1852, and the gold mining diggins'. Like much of the foothills, the You Bet area was mined to a fare-thee-well during the Gold Rush era, much of it by hydraulic mining (dislodging gold bearing ore from hillsides by high pressure water monitors) which was prominent in the early gold rush days. By 1918, an estimated $3 million in gold (about $175 million at 2015 prices) had been mined.
I don't now how many acres or square miles in the Sierra foothills contain old diggins' or mines or their remnants -- the You Bet/Red Dog/Chalk Bluff area is one example. Fun to explore, but many are on private property and not accessible. For others, like the preserve we visited today (which is on Tahoe National Forest land), an experienced guide is needed.
The red check mark on the left is near where we live; the mark at right is Chalk Bluff. No straight road will lead you from one side to the other!
From the You Bet overlook, here's another view of the bluff in the distance, and the diggins' -- looks like giant anthills. I think we're looking east or east-southeast. The sky was overcast, a gray morning with almost a chill to the air. I wore my windbreaker, but by early afternoon, that thing was off! The hike was scheduled from 9-Noon, but we'd only completed one section, with a visit to a grotto (really?) in the offing from Noon to 2pm, and everyone was game to continue.
After parking and walking a short distance on the road, we're fixin' to climb that hill to our right. Jimmy in red and white checkered shirt is veering in that direction. Honestly, if a trail existed, it was nigh onto impossible to find, but we followed our guide.
We paused here to listen to David Lawler, our geologist guide, talk about the "chalk." White like chalk, soft like talc, but he said it was rhyolite, explosively blown and deposited from vents in the Sierras millions of years ago. Many feet deep, and covered in spots by small stones, in places it was hard to get a footing. I slipped and landed on my heinie as we made our way further. Haha, I wasn't the only one.
Mixed in with the rhoylite were lots of tiny fossilized twig pieces, with the occasional chunk of branch, as above.
Though NorCal is drought-dry, a goodly number of wildflowers were blooming out here, including lots of Harvest brodiaea, above and Wally Basket, below.
Hiking toward an overlook beside the chalk bluff.
David, the geologist, was the perfect leader for this hike. Aside from explaining about rhyolite, he showed us remnants of an ancient Amazon-sized paleo river channel and associated fossil remains of a 50 million year-old tropical rain forest. We learned a lot -- this was an outstanding example of the entire geology of the western Sierra Nevada.
Of course, I noticed the flowers. Yellow ray blooms upper left, and Lupine, upper right. Small monkey flower, bottom left, Scarlet pimpernel (yep!) in the middle, and bush Poppy, bottom right. We actually saw plenty of color.
Twig fossils in rhyolite.
Robin Milam of BYLT took a group photo.
Jimmy and I are in back, left.
We could see it with our eyes, but the camera had difficulty finding the Banner Mountain Lookout (fire tower) at the red check mark. Jimmy and I live on Banner Mountain. We sat for a bit near this spot to look and listen, parking our backsides atop aromatic creeping sage, and feeling quite content.
I keep telling this buzzard "we ain't dead, yet!"
He gave up and flew away.
Know what this is? Used to be an illegal pot farm (or grow). These illegal grows pop up all over the county, get busted, and then it remains junky like this. How gross. This photo shows only part of the grow -- lots more of these round tubs were out of the picture.
We made our way down from the bluff and were on our way to the grotto. David pointed out an early Native American trail through the growth. Notice he has cutters in his hand? We'd find out why in a minute.
We had to bushwhack through the undergrowth to get to the grotto. Here the land was lush with ferns, even a type of fern that only grows in one other area of the state. T'was hard hiking though, David was cutting branches out of the way, we were slippery-sliding on pine straw and pebbles, grasping at any firmly-planted branch or tree to heave ourselves up the slope, and several of us slid down on our heinies. That was going up, coming down was worse! But we all did it, no one got hurt.
This is the (dry) grotto, with only a dribbling of water falling. During a wet year, a 14-ft waterfall can be seen, but not this year! A unique hanging gardens drapes from the rocky overhang. I couldn't back up far enough to get a good shot. The last few severe storms kinda ruined any trail there might have been and blasted the area with dead trees and debris. Well, as John Muir said, "wildness is a necessity." It was pretty here, nonetheless, and very quiet, except for people slapping at mosquitoes!
I bet it's beautiful after we've had rainfall.
What an interesting adventure, and a grand way to spend a cloudy Saturday. While we were Out and About from 9 to 2pm, we put in only three miles, but with lots of up/downs; we'd probably feel it tomorrow (we do). My sox were covered in foxtails and stickers, good luck getting rid of 'em, but I think I dodged any poison oak. Thanks to BYLT for the opportunity to investigate Chalk Bluff, it was something we've wanted to do. I'd love to come back to the area in a rainy year, I'm sure it would be gorgeous.
