I visited on a warm, clear day in March to enjoy all the new green growth and buzzing and humming of insects everywhere.  This is the first of three posts showing what I saw.

Turkey vultures were enjoying the thermals above Blue Ridge:

California poppies had started to adorn the hillsides in February, but were carpeting them in March, especially on the southwest facing slopes:

Regrowth was lush at the base of the California buckeye at marker A07 (map):

I’ve been watching the new stalks of California laurel at B03 get progressively taller:

New, though, was this interesting growth of stalks at the base of a much larger California laurel (not at a CA Phenology Project at Stebbins marker):

Cold Creek clear and full:

Although the reserve remains closed to the public until May, there have been large numbers of trespassers.  Evidence comes in the form of paths blazed down to the creek off the main trail:

This activity directly interferes with the reserve’s ability to fully recover from the fire by increasing erosion and damaging newly regrown plants.  Plenty of other evidence of trespass too: