Hardwear Sessions

Though the foothills appear to be a simple landscape--nothing but layer after layer of rolling hills, breaking against the horizon--they are actually very complicated. The area between Jamestown and Sonora contains a wide variety of microclimates. In the same compact area, we find serpentine soils, limestone, granite, and more. The red serpentine soils that occur south and west of Jamestown are distinctive, and foster a usual community of plants and animals.

John Muir described the Sierra foothills as "a charming landscape garden full of birds and bees and flowers." In early spring, when the meadows are still a brilliant green, and the oak glades are just starting to leaf out, the foothills resemble a vast English park. In place of English manors, red barns and Victorian farmhouses dot the landscape. Too dry to farm, but perfect for ranching, the grassy meadows have been changed by generations of grazing. This is also horse country, and here and there sleek horses fatten themselves on meadow grass. In summer, the hills roll on, an infinite sea of bronzed grass, and they have their own sublime quality. Between Jamestown and Oakdale, raw, prehistoric-looking mesas rise from the meadows, endowing the landscape with a surprising Southwestern touch.

For Muir, spring is the Central Valley's most glorious season. In spring, the Valley becomes "one vast, level, even flower-bed, a sheet of flowers, a smooth sea, ruffled a little in the middle by the tree fringing of the river and of smaller cross-streams here and there, from the mountains."

On our wildflower walks we found, as Muir did, "a land of flowers." Here, flowers sat "side by side, flower to flower, petal to petal, touching but not entwined, branches weaving past and past each other, yet free and separate - one smooth garment, mosses next the ground, grasses above, petaled flowers between."

Today, many of these ecosystems survive only in pockets, for the landscape has been dramatically changed by grazing and fire suppression. A century and a half of intense human activities have brought exotic species and environmental disturbances into a fragile landscape. Each year, the area's seasonal seeps and vernal pools run a little dryer and shallower--the water that would have filled them has gone, instead, to flood the Central Valley's vast fields. The flowers are still abundant, but they no longer paint the landscape blue and gold. Non-native grasses have displaced the natives.

Grazing, too, takes its toll. While walking at Knight's Ferry, we came up along side a barbed-wire fence. Beyond the fence, we saw cattle--but no wildflowers. The fence drew a stark line. On one side, grass chewed down to a few inches in height. On the other, lush fields of flowers running down to the water. Yet grazing still keeps a shadow of the meadows. Compare these pastures with the alternative--subdivisions that tear up the plants and destroy the grasslands' fragile topsoils. (Here, the topsoil is thin and mineral-rich, unlike the rich loams of the East. Like the prairies, this soil could easily turn into a dustbowl.)

On Easter day, we walked to the top of Table Mountain. We climb often in the Grotto, A few miles up the road from Knights' Ferry, the Table Mountain area displays an entirely different plant community. Windswept and barren, the plateau is entirely covered with short, hardy grasses. In winter, it resembles a lush, groomed lawn. During wet years, a seasonal stream flows through the plateau, and the rocks come alive with moss and lichen. In summer, the grasses go dormant, and the plateau turns a soft blonde-brown. On this particular day in March, the plateau was covered with spring wildflowers--yolk yellow goldfields, blue lupines and brodaia, tiny buttercups. Clumps of Indian paintbrush grow at the plateau's edge. Indian paintbrush is taller than the meadow plants, with Day-Glo orange flowers and sage-green leaves.

I followed a footpath to the far end of the plateau and sat there, observing the cliff sparrows dart after flying insects and watching the light change over the New Melones Resevoir. A light breeze blew over the plateau, and I could smell the lupines' sweet fragrance. Up close, the perfume is powerful, almost overwhelming. Fat bumblebees buzzed their way across the meadow, and a handful of languid beetles wandered lazily across some cow parsnips, hoping to find a mate.

There's nothing in this landscape that approaches the mountains' majesty. It is a quiet world, sublime in its infinitude, yet impossibly delicate, even fragile, up close.