Sunday, September 17, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Below Panoramic and Four Corners in Mill Valley is the Homestead Valley Land Trust: 80+ acres of ridges; canyons filled with ferns, California bay laurel, and spikenard; grassy meadows; and rock outcrops and oak woodlands. On this field trip, we will make a two– three mile loop near the center of the preserve on the Ridgewood, Red Plum, and Homestead trails. We will identify plants in their late summer dormant or fading states. We will discuss protecting open space lands from invasive species in the urban-wildland interface. We’ll see recently completed restoration projects (broom and ivy removal) and fire fuel vegetation management adjacent to areas without restoration.
Bring lunch and water.
Hike leader Marabeth Grahame is on the board of the Homestead Valley Land Trust and local Firewise subcommittee that manage the open space lands her father helped protect in the 1970s. She publishes a Blooming Now blog chronicling flowers as they bloom in Homestead and maintains a Biological Inventory database of the plants growing there. In her free time, she can be found out on the land pulling ivy off trees, weeding invasive plants, and photographing wild flowers.
For the Biological Inventory of plants, wildflower gallery, Blooming Now blog, history, and other information, visit the hvlt.org website.
From US 101, take the Tiburon Blvd/E Blithedale exit and go west on East Blithedale, left on Camino Alto, right on Miller Ave., left on Reed Street, right on Laverne Ave., left on N. Ferndale Ave. and right on Ridgewood Ave. At the bottom of the driveway for 361 Ridgewood is a large parking area on the right. We will meet here and walk a short distance to the trailhead.