Albino Redwoods Gale McCreary Column: Gale McCreary Environment Outdoors 

Albino Redwoods: The Ghosts of the Forest

Contributors to a Mighty and Interconnected Family By Gale McCreary It is a student, crouched in the shamrock-like oxalis plants on the shady redwood forest floor, who first alerts me to the mutant. With careful steps I approach the young man as he poses, one knee on his flattened blaick backpack, the other raised as a writing table for his… Read More
Connor Michael Bond bee hotels Local News Outdoors Parks 

Abuzz About the Felton Discovery Park: San Lorenzo Valley Native Habitat Restoration Program Busy with Bees

By Julie Horner Earlier this year the Valley Women’s Club engaged AmeriCorps NCCC Team Fire 5 to remove embedded plastic sheeting and invasive growth from under the San Lorenzo Valley Water District Kirby Road substation solar panels that border the Felton Discovery Park adjacent to the new Felton Library. An effort driven by the VWC’s San Lorenzo Valley Native Habitat… Read More
Pileated Woodpeckers Big Basin Boulder Creek California Fire Recovery Local News Outdoors 

A Woodpecker’s View of Big Basin

By Brenda Holmes As I sit down to write this article, parts of Big Basin are still burning. The fire that left people homeless, burned historic buildings to the ground, and damaged the infrastructure of California’s oldest state park is still smoldering under the surface in places. Thousands of trees succumbed to the fire, and tree canopies scorched by the… Read More
Checker Lily Wildflowers Santa Cruz Mountains Local News Outdoors Recreation 

An Insider’s Guide to Spring Wildflowers at Quail Hollow

By Pamela Morgan April and May always remind me of renewal, birth, and the blooming calla lilies, forget-me-nots, daffodils, and tulips. I become giddy with the first sightings of native wildflowers! I was introduced to coastal wildflowers while hiking with the Santa Cruz and Monterey chapters of the Sierra Club in the mid-80s, gravitating to hikers with an eye for… Read More