Field Trip to Carson Country, Marin County

Field Trip to Carson Country in Marin County

Leader: Roy West is a writer and long-time native plant volunteer. He is not a real botanist.

The Carson Country, between Fairfax and Alpine Dam, is probably my favorite place on Earth. At well under an hour from Berkeley, it’s another world.

The trip starts at the Azalea Hill parking lot and heads northwest on the Pine Hill Fire Rd for an approximately 3.5 mile out-and-back walk, with a loop at the end. I figure 3 or 4 hours at a slow pace with lots of stops to look at plants. There’s a bit of up and down, some of it modestly steep, some narrow trails on the loop, and the road may be wet or rocky. But any regular day hiker with sturdy shoes and used to trails should have no problem. Besides, if you get tired, just stop: it’s heaven everywhere.

The geology is what makes this route special, crossing back and forth from Franciscan melange to serpentine. The plants change as abruptly as the soil.

What to see besides amazing views if it’s clear? Where to start. I was once on a field trip for a CA grass workshop and we never got out of sight of the cars: the plant list has over 25 grass species. Not so keen on grasses? Eponymous azaleas (follow the skunk smell), deep-purple onions, little blue-and-white mariposa tulips, false lupin, a variety of hybrid oaks, and still we can see the cars.

Our main destination is the dwarf Sargent cypress forest on the hard serpentine, by way of serpentine-endemic chaparral: Jepson’s ceanothus, Mt Tam manzanita, oregon gentians, and a jewel flower that grows nowhere else on the planet and is named for a toad.

Of course, all of this is dependent on the season, the weather, and luck. One year there were jewel flowers everywhere. The next year there were none.

As you might imagine, most of the flowering treats are in the late winter and spring, though the gentians flower later in the summer. But the trees, shrubs, and landscape are available year round.

The plan is to visit every few months, starting in the fall to get a sense of the landscape. Later excursions will catch the progression of flowering plants in the winter, spring, and summer.

Suggested Equipment: Hats, water, sensible shoes, hiking sticks if you like, sunscreen, layers, a sandwich, hand lens, binoculars: the usual.

Please leave your dogs at home. I love dogs, too, but if dogs get under foot, even well-behaved dogs, we risk plants and people, particularly on the hillside single-track stretch of the loop.

References:

• Marin Flora

Geology

• Map of Marin

Marin CNPS Plant Lists

• AZALEA HILL and South End of CARSON RIDGE (with a good description of the geology)
• CARSON RIDGE from AZALEA HILL to SAN GERONIMO RIDGE JUNCTION

Carson Country Mysteries

• The Black Hole of Marin (1800s)

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