The Nevada State Parks system is celebrating its 75th anniversary

The Nevada Division of State Parks (parks.nv.gov), starting with the incorporation of Cathedral Gorge and three other sites in 1935, is celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2010. Today, the system has 25 park designations including 12 state parks, 6 state recreation areas and 7 state historic parks. Most of them are located in the Las Vegas area, Reno-Tahoe area, and around Cathedral Gorge north-east of Las Vegas; but to see some of the most unique and “truely Nevadan” sites, like the Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park, requires a planned-ahead tour through desert country to remote landscapes.
The state park categories, however, do not refer to remoteness or serenity but to preservation and protection efforts as well as scenic, cultural and historic characteristics [1]:

State Parks are primarily established to preserve and protect exceptional or unique natural features of ecological, geological, scientific, or similar nature, or exceptional scenic qualities. Cultural features of historical, archaeological, or other significance may exist on the site.

State Recreation Areas typically possess unusual natural or man-made features suitable for a variety of outdoor recreation activities. Such features may include topographic, open space, streams, lakes, or reservoirs.

State Historic Parks preserve and protect historical and archaeological resources and are intended to provide a direct link for the park visitor to Nevada's past. Such areas can include public or private historical buildings or a group of historical buildings, battle grounds, town sites, significant sites of native culture, historical trails or routes, arts, or other sites associated with a significant person or event.

Nevada's state park designations are the most prominent sites that visitors of the Silver State are coming to see, but the wide-open space of this “Western Territory” has even more to offer for hikers, bikers, (horse-)riders and travelers of any kind: yet-unnamed trails, hot springs, beaches, sand dunes, ghost towns, caves and hidden petroglyph sites or colorful lichen-covered rocks, which you have to discover on your own or by guidance of the friendly locals.

Reference
[1] J. Steve Weaver: Nevada's State Parks: 2010 marks the 75th anniversary of the formal establishment of our state parks system. Nevada Magazine March/April 2010, pp. 10-12.

Nevada City walking tour: Pelton wheel at George Allan's Foundry

Nevada City in California, located northwest of Sacramento in the Sierra Nevada foothills, is the home town of the Pelton wheel. Walking through the historical quarters of Nevada City, one can find tools and artifacts, including Pelton wheels, from the time of the mining boom displayed at various sites. One such wheel stands in front of the original brick building of Allan's Machine Shop, which was founded in 1856 and was in continuous usage as a foundry for over 110 years. The famous wheels with the double-cupped buckets, designed by Lester A. Pelton of Camptonville and Nevada City, were first manufactured here. A plaque (placed on May 11, 1994) explains:

The Pelton water wheel, first commercially manufactured here at George Allan's Foundry & Machine Works in 1879, was a major advancement in water power utilization and greatly advanced hard-rock mining. Its unique feature was a series of paired buckets, shaped like bowls of spoons and separated by a splitter, that divided the incoming water jets into two parts. By the late 1800s, Pelton wheels were providing energy to operate industrial machinery throughout the world. In 1888, Lester Pelton moved his business to San Francisco, but granted continuing manufacturing rights to Allan's Foundry, where the wheels were manufactured into the early 1900s, when most local mines shifted to electric power.

Owl watching at Berkeley's waterfront

The ground squirrels and squirrel holes in Berkeley's Cesar Chavez Park—many next to the trails— are hard to miss. Some holes are abandoned by squirrels, but are used by burrowing owls (Speotyto cunicularia) as resting place. These owls are known to dig burrow nest in open fields, but take advantage if they find some ready-made nests. I am not aware of any predator-prey relationship between squirrels and owls and assume that the burrowing owls feel well-protected here. According to a posted information sheet, burrowing owls hunt and eat crickets, beetles, small rodents, lizards, and crayfish. Since burrowing owls are active during night and day they can easily be watched during the day: These small brown birds (8 to 10 inches tall) are spotted with white. There head is rounded and lacks ear tufts. While you are watching them, they probably watch you with their yellow eyes.

Also see Burrowing owls in the northwest corner of Berkeley's Cesar Chavez Park.

Burrowing owls in the northeast corner of Berkeley's Cesar Chavez Park

The Cesar Chavez Park is a recreational area at Berkeley's waterfront. In fact, this site is a former landfill in the San Francisco Bay. Now, green grasslands belong to its main features. The park is a playground for humans, dogs and squirrels. But more surprising, some Western Burrowing Owls (Speotyto cunicularia) selected sections of the park as their habitat, where they stay over winter—from October to April. Burrowing owls typically “play” and hunt by day and you can easily spot them from the trail during a day-walk. So it was in 2004, as The Berkeley Daily Planet reported, and so it happened again the following winter seasons.
In a joint project, The Golden Gate Audubon Society, The Shorebird Park Nature Center, and the Berkeley Marina of the City of Berkeley are monitoring arrival and well-doing of the owls. In the northeast corner of the Park a small, “fenced-off” area along the shoreline trail has been created for their protection.

A hiker's attraction in northern England: Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian's Wall was once a frontier of the Roman empire in the northwestern part of Europe, far away from Rome. During that time, Roman soldiers patrolled along the stonework. Now, hikers and history buffs walk stretches of the 84-mile-long National Trail, following the path along the remaining structures of Hadrian's Wall, which winds through a scenic countryside of northern England, south of Scotland. In a recent Smithsonian article with photographies by Sisse Brimberg and Cotton Coulson [1], Andrew Curry writes about his east-to-west hike from Wallsend, a town outside Newcastle at the North Sea coast, across the hills-and-crags-covered English landscape to Bowness-on-Solway, the western wall's end on the Irish Sea side.
If you plan for a Hadrian's Wall hike, plan for a multiple-days hike, since there are so many interesting things to see and to do along the second-century Roman fortification in Britain. And, as always in England, plan for a rainy day or two.

Reference
[1] Andrew Curry: Trekking Hadrian's Wall Smithsonian October 2009, Volume 40, Number 7, pp. 40-47.

Bicycling ahead

Urban bicycling is going to be safer when marked bike lanes are painted on the road or when lanes are physically separated from motor vehicle traffic. In some European cities, for example, bike lanes are elevated, being on the same level as the pedestrian side-walk next to it. Many cities now have an infrastructure that includes a network of bike paths under- or overpassing streets and highways. Sometimes, bike trails shortcut through parks or neighborhoods giving you an advantage in reaching your destination over others who got stuck in car traffic. Another encouraging sign of city-bicycling awareness is that municipal transportation systems, whether based on bus, light rail, train or subway, provide options to bring on your bike.
The bikeability of cities is typically evaluated with indexes. A recent article [1] explains, why measuring the proportion of female bicyclists might be a more significant indicator of the bicycle-friendliness of urban areas than bikeability indexes. Whereas the ratio of male versus female cycling trips is 2:1 in the U.S., in the Netherlands (with an excellent bicycling infrastructure) 55 percent of all riders are woman. The share of people in the U.S., relying on bikes for transportation, is below 2 percent, while it is 12 percent in Germany and 27 percent in the Netherlands.
Whoever is sitting on the bike deserves a safe urban environment whether bicycling for fun, to work or to his/her favorite destination in town.

Keywords: bicycle tracks, urban infrastructure, municipal planning, sustainable transportation, gender bias

Reference
[1] Linda Baker: Shifting Gears • To boost urban bicycling, figure out what woman want. Scientific American October 2009, Volume 301, Number 4, pages 28-29.

Jobs Peak Ranch Trail near Minden/Gardnerville

The Jobs Peak Ranch Trail in the foothills between the Carson Valley and the Carson Range is a footpath that offers hiking or jogging through an area where the sagebrush and bitterbrush vegetation meets manzanita/pine forest habitats. This trail, crossing through the late-afternoon shadows of Jobs Peak and Jobs Sister, is just 1.4 miles long. It ends at the stateline between Nevada and California, but continues on into the Fay-Luther Trail System.

Getting to the Jobs Peak Ranch Trailhead
From the intersection of the Kingsbury Grade Road (207) with the Foothill Road (208) in Mottsville go south for about 2.5 miles, passing Centerville Lane. Watch for the trailhead sign. The Jobs Peak Ranch Trhd. is to your right. An interpretive panel with a trail map is located at the beginning of the trail. This is a hiking trail. Dogs are allowed on leash. No biking; most parts of the trail are sandy.