City & County 03: Exploring the edgelands
Words and images by Troy Carle.
The Red Hills Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) covers 7,100 acres, wedged between Central Valley ranchland and the oak and pine chaparral of the Sierra foothills. It has a unique geography made visible in its red, serpentine soil and in 1983 was dedicated as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern to protect several species of plants that grow nowhere else in the world.
Recreation is a secondary goal for the management of this area. Most users access the center of the park at a developed trailhead for hiking, horseback riding, and mountain biking. This BLM-managed land parcel is spread across a large area, within a patchwork of federal lands sometimes only touching at corners. This haphazard organization means that much of the public land has little or no access and that there are pockets of private land scattered among the protected lands.
I only recently realized that a valley I’ve driven past hundreds of times is part of the Red Hills ACEC. This fringe section is bordered by Highway 108 to the west, a failed subdivision and a section of Table Mountain to the north, private property to the east and a Sierra Northern rail line that is used 1-2 times a month to the south.
The valley’s floor is bisected by a seasonal creek and is currently covered with wildflowers. Soon, the green grass will turn brown and temperatures over 100 degrees will further limit the number of human visitors to this area. Even in this ideal time of year to visit, animal tracks outnumbered boot prints. It was bizarre to see so few signs of human activity. You can see and hear the Highway 108 nearby, but it otherwise feels like remote wilderness.
Aside from pristine gravel roads and sporadic, capped water wells hidden in tall grass, the area is largely untouched by humans. Game trails and the flight paths of butterflies and birds criss-cross the boundaries. Wildflowers and grasses grow across meadows and the un-built subdivision, making it hard to see where the stalled real estate development ends and the protected land begins.
There are many of these wild places existing in the edgelands between cities and more-remote wilderness. Often they are not well-noted nor promoted, and often difficult to access, even though, as public lands, they should be identified and explored.
