We had a fun and energetic group of 11 people, including an 11-year-old boy, show up for a hike on the 2½-mile Meiner’s Gulch Loop Trail in the Swasey Recreation Area, which was sponsored jointly by Shasta Chapter CNPS and Sierra Club. We had people with varying degrees of native plant knowledge, and all participated in identifying plants.
The vegetation along this trail burned in the 2018 Carr Fire, but it is recovering nicely. Many new trees were growing, especially knobcone and gray pines, and the black oaks and interior live oaks were resprouting from the root crowns. The canyon live oaks have largely healed themselves, as have a few interior live oaks.
This trail follows the headwaters of Olney Creek, so we enjoyed the sound of running water and seeing the recovery of willows and Fremont cottonwood along the creek. Other plants we saw were goldback fern, bird’s-foot fern, scented cudweed, Pacific snakeroot, and chaparral honeysuckle. Common manzanitas were blooming and the keckiella shurbs had purple buds that almost appeared to be closed flowers, but weren’t. This species has cream-colored flowers that bloom in spring.
After the field trip, six of us went to the remains of an old hardrock mine a short distance away. All that is left are the foundations of buildings, and a huge wall of one section that was apparently part of an old stamp mill. -David Ledger
