On Monday, February 23, we took a field trip in the Swasey Recreation Area, west of Redding. Cloudy skies and a Monday hike date limited the turnout to five, including walk leader David Ledger.
The lower reaches of the recreation area are in blue oak woodland, which changes with elevation to a canyon live oak woodland, and eventually to what used to be a mixed conifer–hardwood forest at the highest elevations. The trail we took is called the Terminator Trail, which is quite rocky for almost a mile, but past that it is a decommissioned road, which becomes a narrower trail near the ridgetop. It has a few seasonal stream crossings and a high diversity of plants.
The area along this trail was burned in the Carr Fire of 2018, leaving a mosaic of low- to high-intensity burned sections, which brought out a lot of early-blooming wildflowers for our field trip.
Photo by David Ledger.
Foothill poppies, popcorn flowers, bluedicks, hog fennel, Henderson’s shooting-stars, Indian-warriors, canyon nemophila, clematis, hound’s-tongue, and clustered broomrape were among the wildflowers in bloom. Common shrubs along the trail included buckbrush, deer brush, mule fat, white manzanita, and common manzanita. Yerba santa and toyon were everywhere.
The trail is moderate in difficulty, and it is best hiked on weekdays or in inclement weather to avoid mountain bikes. ~David Ledger