Hike at Elkhorn Slough

It’s an afternoon for a hike at Elkhorn Slough,

which is honored as California’s first National Estuarine Research

Reserve,

one of the few of any extensive state coastal wetlands remaining,

winding inland from Moss Landing, the big power plant obvious

in the not-too-far distance,

just left of the main channel of open water of grayish marine-green,

a white plume from one of the twin stacks there,

a low hum from there for a steady wind from the Bay,

shimmering beyond the last strip of land you see from here,

uphill

at the Visitors Center.

They provide binoculars,

which is certainly an indicator of what the great attraction

is here—

And how many years has it been

since I last went out bird watching? It must be years, I think.

I think especially, it does seem from another lifetime past,

this long ago adolescent I was, oh, back in Michigan it was,

I was a fanatic for birds then, I knew all my birds

back then.

And so round my neck a pair of binoculars hang

—a trail map brochure I’ve tucked inside the cover

of the sketchpad I carry—,

& now I walk downward this dried up wild grass & wildflower

bending so gently of a slope

to a point of lookout—

To the distant right,

you see the hazy-looking backbone coastal range of mountain,

and always prominent Loma Prieta, always the watchful Eye

of the land—

A long bank of cumulus cloud rides just above it.

Numerous channels & fingers of the slough’s waters

spread all layered outward from this view;

from it,

tiny glinting vehicles you catch sight of north & south going

on distant Highway 1,

its bridge over the mouth of the main channel of the slough

hidden by a mass of trees that’s just right side the big power plant;

and rail tracks upon closer binocular inspection I see

have been laid straight through this side the main channel,

and high-tension power lines have also been low swung

between towers

over this side

the slough;

power lines all originating from the big power plant.

And downward still the path of dried up wild grass

—& of tall, season-ended poison hemlock there’s so much—,

round passed the slight rust patina shell of an old, abandoned,

gray metal barn

—another barn, a bit down further,

I see the trail comes round to later—,

it’s the South Marsh Loop Trail I find myself walking

—2.2 miles I see the wood post marker says—,

of which I spontaneously take the right hand direction

& shortly descend to a thickety, scrubby oak & willow-lined,

wild blackberry runner of a vehicle-wide, leisurely path,

& a couple of age-worn, not very tall at all

—they hint of an earlier era—,

telegraph poles (I think they might be),

with clipped wires dangling,

in passing I note among the oaks to the side,

& I see that lizards like to come out to bask here,

in bright, hot patches of the path, hit direct by the Sun.

So I walk along then

the first of a little finger of marsh, suddenly which comes up

on the left,

where breeze-blown wavelets scintillate in the light of the Sun

& a flitting about cabbage butterfly or two I see,

where patches of dodder have flamed out in burnt orange

among the pickleweed of the border;

& there’s a boating dock obviously from earlier days

further back of the finger there I see,

& the little bridge beyond

my trail map indicates I’ll be crossing later.

It’s all thickets through here,

with coyote bush, a shaded stretch of gnarly scrub oak

for ferns,

a few pines,

there’s quite a bit of poison oak

& all this tangled blackberry alongside,

& others I pass making their way

coming the other direction.

And memories of my youth come to me

of the times year round

when the beloved floodplain of woods

that stretched out from the ravine behind our house

I once haunted

—oh, I almost lived in those woods back then—,

as I hear goldfinch & chickadee, familiars of that time,

as if suddenly they were addressing me,

out of that past...

And now I spy at the marsh edge,

rounding another finger,

a kingfisher perched on a limb out over the water;

I also find acorn woodpecker, crow & scrub jay here;

a vulture sails overhead;

& the drone of an occasional small plane

also seems to be common, overhead—

Otherwise—oh, the distant Highway 1 traffic is heard some—,

otherwise, it is a wonderful quiet here, I should like to think.

Now a cattail swale

to the right side just a few steps from the trail

under tall eucalyptus

I come upon,

a stocky night heron stock-still as if asleep

I spot out on a branch of a dead, long dried up, big tree

that undoubtedly had come down into the water

some years back;

& here I see some number of mallards on the banks

& out swimming on the water’s

algae-blooming surface,

feeding there;

a sort of lazy, lost-to-the-world, self-contained serenity

I find here,

which,

after a lazy minute or so of gazing upon,

I now turn from—

And strewn a ways on the trail here

I see all these buttons of the surrounding eucalyptus,

exuding, as I can smell, their medicinal scent,

& then comes along on this other side the marsh finger

a pleasantly shady passageway of California’s grand old live oak

I pass under,

their overhanging, gnarled & twisted limbs

like an arched yesteryear bower over the path;

& the roof of the other barn I saw earlier appears from here

over the hillock I had just come from;

& you can hear the wavelets of this finger of the marsh

rippling

for the breeze.

And up along a slightly higher stretch of trail

rounding into another of the larger of the marsh fingers

you now get a view of the whole slough outwards towards the Bay,

which itself, though, happens to be hidden from here

by a wild grass & brushy-clumped distant hillock of a ridge;

& there’s a wooden bench here

down a few wooden steps above the water’s edge

you can pause & relax a few moments at;

& more of the cabbage butterflies I see, their winging zigzag passage

apparently is common at this time of the year,

through here;

& you can see all through here now to both sides the trail

the spread

of the invader, non-native, ivy-like creeping, periwinkle;

& there’re oaks all up through here of gnarled archways

with their hundreds of dark, twisty-fingered branches

going up the sky of the hillside.

And then up a turn

—telephone wires passing overhead—, rounding another loop,

the trail continues

where these tall, high-branching, lone-looking pines

acorn woodpeckers I can see make their home

—there’re holes all over them up high—;

& there’s a patch on the marsh side, still, to my left,

of musky sweet mugwort

—oh that smell that is distinctively mugwort,

I squeeze a leaf or two between my fingers

& indulge that smell, I like that smell—;

& on the woodsy right side,

you can see the carpeting periwinkle has taken over completely;

& these bare, contorted, light gray-color trunks you see

all up through here

of the oaks.

And then comes another bend in the way

where the largest of the fingers loop

& there’s a narrow-planked, wide-built boardwalk,

suddenly there

in front of you—

As I about midway have walked across,

passed the over-arching reach of branches of willows,

a couple approach from the opposite direction,

each holding in hand a pair of binoculars I see,

& they stop & say to me they want to observe the egrets nesting,

or whatever they might happen to see

at this time;

they say they’re from back East.

So I join them for a few moments, turning to look along with them,

there, to observe at the tops of the dead-looking Monterey pines

—some looking as though they are still alive—,

there, at the far end of the rookery pond

—for this is the point on the trail

where it’s the best view of the rookery

you’ll find—,

the three of us observe now

a few of the white great egrets

& black cormorants

—other cormorants with their deep croak calls

wheel above,

whether coming or going—,

but the breeding season for them all, I understand,

this late, I tell the couple,

has already passed.

And a great blue heron is full-length, classic posed

out on a limb of a tree

perfectly parallel to us,

which the couple express their appreciation seeing.

We then say Have a good day,

& so we go our own way.

And as I continue,

quickly reaching the other end of the boardwalk,

this tall stand of giant eucalyptus

are like guardians to both sides here

—their buttons & slender leaves

are literally strewn all through here,

& so much of their bark peeling in shredded strips,

seemingly like sculpted studies of stages of unveiledness—

And how sheer, how smooth, like ceramic, some of those big, tall,

bark-peeled trunks are!

And then under the power lines I pass

—the tall power towers spaced to the distant left & right,

with distant Loma Prieta still peeking up to the right—

& it’s a straightaway stretch that now opens out to

this slight rolling out of a plain

that’s covered by a sea of dried up wild grasses

& lots of hemlock

spread out, as the eye can see,

to a pleasant, golden hillside

in the near distance;

& still others coming from the opposite way

I pass.

A trail marker

for North Marsh Overlook comes up on the right;

I look down the big wide corridor but decide that I’ll pass;

but, then, there’s another of these two-arrow pointing trail posts

now quickly comes up:

one arrow pointing to

Hummingbird Island

straight ahead .25 of a mile,

while the other

points to the continued direction

of the Loop Trail,

now making a sharp turn

to the left.

I gaze straight ahead & decide I’ll to go out to Hummingbird Island,

whatever that might involve,

& so I continue my way, straight ahead—

Down a not-too-long of a corridor of fennel, more hemlock,

blackberry & wild rose bush I walk

—a brown towhee

is out hopping on the path in front of me—,

and I wonder,

Is this actually an island, Hummingbird Island?

Perhaps at one time it was, I gather,

but doesn’t appear to be an island now;

I come up to this a not-too-long of a levee,

and as far as I can see,

it appears to go straight to & connect

with the island—

So I start to cross over,

& I’m all in the open to this breeze

blowing across a wide channel

—there’s algae-covered marsh to the right

& a big culvert cut through the levee,

water is draining out from,

into the marsh—,

& quickly then, having crossed to the other end,

an old metal pipe gate I come up to,

I see you can simply walk around,

which I do,

& then I step across

the straight track going both directions of the rail—

Straight through it goes, laid across this one, long, seemingly

endless berm,

through all the meanderings of the marsh & snaky flow

of waterway—

pretty much a straight shot it goes

(—oh, to the north a little, it bends).

And this, yes,

must be Hummingbird Island already.

A killdeer I spot

probing about among ducks in the close by of mudflats

of the shallows of the channel waters here,

& there are, I see, a few longish-billed marbled godwits also probing

& walking,

& walking & probing

along the muddy edge of the shallows.

It’s a wide open view the path offers here

of all that’s north side the little island,

its edge covered all through here

by the tiny, green, succulent-petaled pickleweed & jaumea,

with bursts here & there of the gauzy spent orange color

of dodder—

And now a bench I find

beside the main channel of the slough

under a bordering stand of a younger growth of eucalyptus

where wind blows in from the Bay even stronger,

& the marine-green is darker, grayer, for the gray billowy fog

now amassing I see

at Moss Landing.

I sit for a few contemplative minutes here,

& read on my trail map that Hummingbird Island

was once the location of the old Empire Gun Club,

turn of the last century—

So they were coming here,

(even by train, I would hear)

to hunt & shoot up animals,

oh, such was our past.

I reflect how it’s now a different world we live in,

how precious we today consider the natural world around us

to be,

& how richly woven of all these biohabitats Elkhorn is,

that the weaving through of my short hike this afternoon,

these scribbled, fragmented, wholly inadequate notes I make,

in my sketchpad,

will only barely begin to indicate—

I should hope to weave

by a totally different kind of aim & practice

a more thorough & tightly-woven fabric

of all the threads that make a place,

someday.

Someday,

to be so attuned to all the life of place,

its multi-threaded rhythms

might come to be intimately woven

directly into the seeing

of our own perception

& be so inextricably our art’s own.

You can see across the main channel here golden hillocks

rimming round this side the slough

—Highway 1 is just the other side there,

& Loma Prieta, to the right, framed between—,

& there’s pelican, tern, gull & cormorant & swallow here,

& there’s a change of weather

in the air.

So I get up to swing back

& startle ground squirrels scampering at my feet,

then a little rabbit hops away,

& dragonflies hover & zip around

on the cypress & eucalyptus sheltered back inward side

this little island.

Walking up a path

that up the middle crosses over,

somewhat surprised I am to find

this earthen-made mound—

It’s a mock Ohlone midden constructed by an artist,

I find out,

the truncated half of which has been quite strikingly decorated

with rock & shell in concentric half circles

that are white & black & gray,

suggesting how they might have been layered over time;

it faces a shallow, blending-into-the-ground,

sedge-filled, algae-splotched, concrete-enclosed little pool;

an Ohlone fishing basket even sticks up out of the pool.

And a frame of iron rods modeled like a dwelling

—they are bent up over a central, chopped off, tree—

I also come up to & wonder about

(& so I am to find out later

this is all an art project

inspired by

the Ohlone peoples having once lived

all through this area).

And there’s

a very solid stone bench, I find, from the gun club era,

just a few steps further.

Then,

down a small wooden staircase

& a few steps more, passing by coyote bushes,

I return to the sage brush bordering entry

to the tracks of the rail crossing again.

As I retrace my steps

back to the other end of the levee,

I notice again this stubby, standing section

of another one of these old boating docks, all briny-stained,

left high & dry above the tide level

—a small wood sign nearby says Fadley Dock,

& who knows how many years

that certainly goes back—

I see there’re other collapsed segments of what remains of it

semi-hidden in the water’s edge vegetation.

And walking back but a short distance more,

I pick up the South Marsh Loop Trail again,

now to the right,

& it runs alongside all this dense thistle & more swaths rising

of the tall, dried up, hemlock,

which brings me to

these alternating fingers to the right

of islet & open water—

Crickets are chirping here & more chirrup & quirky whistles

of bird;

I spot a redwing, doves fly up, there’re sparrows of some kind,

& you’d surmise the incoming tide must just about immerse

the littlest of the islets, they’re not much.

To think,

this was all for many years through here drained by dike,

& used as pasture land, I read in my brochure

—it’s hard to believe—,

but, beginning as of 1983,

the slough is still undergoing restoration,

to what it obviously always was—

a natural salt wetland.

And so the tides have returned.

The natural rhythms

have returned.

And now I come upon

a big patch of alkali heath spread,

here, on the right side of the channel

—I sweep my hand over it

& taste just a bit of the sticky wet sea salt it is known to collect—,

& immediately then begins another, longer, pickleweed-bordered levee

—there’s deeper, open water to both sides of it—,

that now leads me up to

a short, wooden, foot bridge

that I remember I had seen from a distance earlier,

that, at this point,

you have to cross over

—it’s tilted noticeably, giving me a so subtle off balance feeling,

as I seemingly glide above the surface of the silty salt water.

A daily ebb & flow

passes through here,

in & out the many-fingered extension the trail had just encircled

of South Marsh.

And there’s another

narrow, little, offshoot boardwalk to the right

to one of the larger of these all-over-covered by pickleweed

islets—

So I walk out to it, my curiosity leading me,

& I spot a long-billed curlew on the muddy edge

of the islet that’s next over

—so extraordinarily long that bill,

it’s, as one must say, quite rather remarkable.

And more godwits there are & then other small sandpipers

I see

all along the muddy edges,

of which to be able to identify the exact species,

without a bird guide, I admit,

I am simply at a loss.

So I start upward again

the first hillside I started from

& walk by bunches of bush lupine

& more bunches all through here of coyote bush;

I have passed under the power lines again,

& now approach this large, all open-sided, wide A-frame,

metal corrugated roof

—it’s what I had seen earlier on the trail—

of what at one time, I read,

was a dairy barn.

Walking up to it, here, where the trail branches off a little,

I look in—

Still in fine condition, as one can readily see,

however it appears to be all roof—

You can look straight through the other end of it.

I note that straw has even been freshly laid out inside,

& just above

ELKHORN FARM

in corroded, white-painted, metalwork lettering

is mounted over

the big, wide opening.

And there’s an owl’s nesting box,

as a little sign asks for quiet,

I also see high up in the rafters

inside.

Now returning to the path,

I see that the Five Fingers Loop Trail begins

sharply to the right,

an intersection where the South Marsh Loop Trail

I have just taken

begins.

And so the main path

passes back again by the other barn

that’s upward toward the point of the lookout

where I first began;

& the Bayward direction behind me sends up a wall of gray—

fog’s coming in.

And as I walk upward the hill,

I stop, I hear it coming,

& the loud blast of its whistle—

Through the binoculars,

I watch as a long, slender, sleek-looking its locomotive,

Amtrak

now speeds down the tracks, northbound,

& shorebirds in the nearby vicinity of its oncoming flutter en masse

in sudden flight.

Seems always

our human insistent, having-to-get-somewhere presence

finds at every opportunity

a way of reminding us

of ourselves—

In fact,

I’ve become quite aware now

on this hike

how the slough has absorbed a substantial amount

of human alteration,

& I realize how the contemporary push for development

continues unabated this creeping expansion

going round

our beautiful Goddess Bay.

If only Gaia can sustain Herself in all Her revealed abundance

here—oh, across all the planet—

for the ever ongoing impact

we make.

If only…if only…

But we know what the global reports do indicate…

Oh, I shall return to Elkhorn—

Like the memories of a path winding through my past,

there is so much more to this slough,

as of course there is

to the whole experience I call our Bay of Monterey

I dedicate my art to—

I have only begun to explore all the life of Her.

Such a richness of incredibly varied, interwoven life

what can I say but is a joy to behold, to be a part of,

to participate

in the dance of—

I have only begun in the celebrating of Her.

For those who can read the broader implications of my path,

despite what may come,

what the global reports all do indicate,

I suggest, I also indicate, there is a possible, other future,

that we today can indeed walk another path, a different path,

than what our predecessors had so narrowly defined

for us

—all the signs certainly do call for it—,

which is a path of deep respect

for a more profound Nature—

It is to allow especially, first of all,

all the voices of Gaia to speak...

Now I see great egrets posed along a distant marsh line.

As I approach the Visitor’s Center, a red-shouldered hawk

I see

perched

on some old, abandoned, wooden frame.

Elkhorn Slough

August 2000 / August 2002