Hey friends (including friends I have not yet met):
Nowhere in San Mateo County is more remote, or under-explored, than Pescadero Creek County Park (PCCP). The largest of the Pescadero Creek Complex Parks, it has over 25 miles of hiking trails, a variety of habitats, and a myriad of streams and tributaries. Hosting everything from Steelhead Trout to Santa Cruz Cypress, it is likely to reveal more gems and secrets if we make a long-range plan to collectively visit and document the place. I have made a personal commitment to do this, in anticipation of this park being on the schedule for a future BioBlitz (or two or three or twenty) as part of the coalition between Sequoia Audubon, San Mateo County Parks, California Academy of Sciences, and the California Lichen Society. It is my personal goal to walk every mile of trail within the park. This will call for some VERY long walks, careful reading of topographic maps, two-car set-ups, and companionship (for safety, for friendship, for fun, and for discovery of a wider range of organisms).
@arnel started this project a few years ago in conjunction with a Christmas Bird Count assignment here, and we are now together repurposing it for more extended iNaturalist participation. I will eventually transform it into an automatic project, but for now I am retaining it as a traditional opt-in project, so remember to document anything you see in PCCP and add it to the project manually. I know it is something of a pain, but it is only temporary, until I can clarify the borders of the park (specifically the northern border with Sam McDonald) to my satisfaction (right now, iNat is defaulting some observations made in Sam McDonald to PCCP).
For those of you who don't know this park, there are three RELATIVELY easy access points -
1) from the west, the Hoffman Creek Trailhead is contiguous to Memorial Park on Wurr Road. This is the easiest access point from Pescadero and the coastside.
2) from the east, the Camp Pomponio Road comes off (rather inconspicuously) from Alpine Road, and leads to a parking area for the Tarwater Trailhead
3) from the southeast, there are numerous contiguous trails that start from WITHIN Portola Redwoods State Park (trail markers 77, 80 and 82 if you are using the map)
There are also the following difficult points of access
4) Dropping down into PCCP from Sam McDonald can be done on the East Brook Trail (see trail markers 29, 30, 31, 32, 33) from near the Hiker's Hut
5) Dropping down into PCCP from Sam McDonald can also be done on the West Brook Trail from near the Jack Brook Horse Camp (see trail markers 27, 28 for orientation to this). This trail may be closed due to bridge damage currently (as of 2019)
6) There is a private property easement to/from Big Basin Redwoods State Park (see trail markers 84, 85 for orientation), but this is currently closed at least through the summer of 2019 (see the notice on the Big Basin home page for more information - http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=540 and take a look at the park map's northeastern point for a sense of where that easement enters - http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/540/files/BigBasinRedwoodsFinalWebLayout2018.pdf )
Fascinating history of the park, and why it is so undeveloped - that's how the people wanted it! This article also contains a full list of all the creeks and tributaries in PCCP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pescadero_Creek_County_Park
This article details how the undeveloped state of PCCP may be the only good thing ever to have come out of Proposition 13 - https://parks.smcgov.org/pescadero-creek-park-history
The park map can be accessed here - https://parks.smcgov.org/sites/parks.smcgov.org/files/PescaderoComplexMap-Nov2018-FINAL-web-formatted.pdf
Look for more announcements soon, but keep this one on file, due to the links and explanations herein contained.
Jennifer Rycenga
a.k.a. gyrrlfalcon