Tim Oren's Due Diligence

Hey, I Made The Chron! (And Not Why You'd Think)

It's got nothing to do with venture capital or technology, but rather one of my volunteer activities that I have discussed here before. Today's Tom Stienstra column highlights the Candelabra redwood tree in Butano State Park, (re)discovered by a party including yours truly a few years back. It's now reached by the trail described in the column, which I helped engineer and construct as part of a merry band of Trail Center volunteers.

There's a picture of the Candelabra from discovery day linked from the column - that's me reclining at right. You can tell that's not my weekday working clothes, but you can't see the coating of sweat and poison oak (I'm immune, TG) resulting from crawling through the brush, retracing an abandoned logging road visible on old aerial photos. Contra the credits caption, the photo was actually shot by Dave Croker, the third member of the survey party.

There's another tree photo featuring our intrepid trail builders linked from my earlier post. This is likely not the best season to hike out on the soggy Coastside, but the tree is quite an amazing sight and easily reached by walkers of modest ability and experience once the ground dries up in spring.

It's Been A Dry Year

I'm talking weather here, not investing. Last night the Bay Area got a significant rainfall, which feels like the first of the real winter pattern. As the morning talking heads say "The storm door's open". It hasn't come a bit too soon. Last weekend we were driving down by Morgan Hill and stopped to visit a rare sight: The 70 year old Llagas Creek bridge has emerged from the drying Chesbro reservoir - which is now at 9.1% percent of its capacity.

Henry Coe (Lick) Fire Visuals

The big brush fire burning in Henry Coe State Park, east of Morgan Hill, can be seen via a webcam up at the Mount Hamilton observatory. Movies of the previous 24-hours are here. And I've saved away the movie of 9/4, the big blowup, as a download.

Coe is a very steep and remote wilderness park. Many parts of it have a very heavy fuel load built up over the decades, and that plus hot winds from the interior are going to make things hard for Calfire. This area has 'needed to burn' for quite a while, so as long as the conflagration can be kept away from inhabited areas, the size of the fire shouldn't be too big a concern. Assuming it doesn't get so hot as to sterilize the soil, there should be spectacular post-fire wildflower displays next spring.

Stanford Stadium: Going, Going, Gone

If you're not from around the Palo Alto area, you might not know that Stanford stadium is in line to be scrapped and rebuilt. They sure didn't waste any time after the last game of the season. Today a lunchtime walk led me past the site. It was amusing and a bit alarming to watch a big excavator perched on the top of the earthen berm that holds the stadium, clawing away at the remains of the clubhouse area.

You can keep up on the action by visiting the Stanford stadium website, and checking out the webcams tab. It looks like the demolition is pretty much completed - quite amazing to see the soil where there have been seats for all these years. The construction is scheduled to run until September next year, so there ought to be steady action to watch.

Trail to Candelabra Tree Opened!

Over a year ago I posted about a wonderful old growth redwood found in the Santa Cruz mountains. After an extra effort this weekend by an intrepid band of trail builders and bridge engineers, the way to this monster is open to those who don't fancy cross-country bush-whacking.

You'll still have to work for it, though. You can reach what we we've taken to calling the Candelabra Tree by starting from the main road of Butano State Park. From there, climb via either the Goat Hill Trail and Connector, or Service Road and Olmo Fire Road, to the junction of the Olmo Road and Gazos Trail. That's at about N 37 12.028 W 122 19.457 for GPSr wielding hikers. From there the as-yet-unsigned trailhead takes off downhill, roughly southwest. If you have to cross a large fallen log about 50 yards down, you're on the right path. From there it's about a mile down to the big tree. It's an out-and-back for now, though a route will eventually be opened down to the Gazos Road to join with Año Nuevo State Park. (DON'T try whacking your way down there now, unless you are an experienced orienteer and IMMUNE to poison oak. Trust me, I surveyed it.)

Spring Fever

So, where have I been hiding? It may be hard for those reading from DC or NYC to credit, but it's spring in California. Meaning it's the time of year when hiking boots take precedence over keyboards when possible. It looks like an early and intense wildflower season, and we're out there making the most of it. Making things worse this year is a new toy picked up during the holidays, which has added chasing caches to our floral pursuits.

But, if you happen to live in the Bay Area, you can benefit from all this diversion. This Saturday, my wife and I are joining uber-botanist Toni Corelli to lead a docent walk through Edgewood Park's wildflower display on its serpentine grasslands.

All this said, there are couple of blogging related projects perking along in the background, that need to stay quiet for just now, though they are soaking up bandwidth usually devoted to writing. The blog translation markup is an aspect of one of them, and the other will have to stay mysterious for now.

More Lions around the Valley

Further to my earlier post on the topic, blogger Ross Mayfield reports that a member of his family encountered a mountain lion, in a Palo Alto green belt park about five miles from this office. Since he doesn't say otherwise, it probably did the usual thing and ran off as quickly as possible.

I've been hiking the Bay Area hills for nearly twenty years now, and have yet to see a big cat. Some bobcat, a lot of coyotes, but no lions. Dang. Here kitty, kitty....

Lions invade Silicon Valley!

No, really, trust me! Yesterday, a 108 pound mountain lion (aka cougar) was treed by a dog and shot by a police sniper in a Palo Alto residential neighborhood less than two miles from my office. For those who know the territory, this was well east of El Camino, and a long way from the green belt parks.

The lion population has been slowly growing in the Bay Area hills, responding to an over-population of deer. With a dry late spring, the deer have come down from the hills to feast on irrigated gardens earlier than usual. As the deer move into the suburban fringes, the lions follow. There's been a small one sighted at Edgewood Park, less than a mile from my home. Still, having a cat make it miles down into Palo Alto is unprecedented - it might have been following a stream drainage corridor. Too bad they had to take it out, but the judgement call that a half-tranked lion loose in a residential neighborhood was a poor risk was likely the right one.