March 22, 2024
Today we are in Oraville at the North Table Mountain ecological reserve. It is a table top Mesa with steep cliffs formed by volcanic activity. There are 12 people in our group and we are looking forward to some beautiful scenery, wildflowers, and waterfalls.
Immediately, after taking a picture of this sign, I dropped my phone, and it landed face down on top of a sharp volcanic rock shattering my screen! Luckily, I can still access the camera and snap pictures using the side buttons although I can’t do my picture and picture videos today.
We began our hike across the Mesa across lava Fields which are covered in wildflowers. We came to the edge of a cliff and could look down into the valley and see a waterfall in the distance.
We continued downhill into the valley arriving at an another gorgeous waterfall.
We went back up the other side of the valley passing more incredibly beautiful wildflowers like the Red Larkspur and fields of golden California Poppies, soon reaching another table top Mesa.
We hiked across the field and arrived to another cliff edge looking across at Phantom Falls which drops down into the valley below, with its steep volcanic cliffs.
We turned around and headed off at a 45° angle, crossing a small stream walking alongside the edge of the cliff with oak trees off to our other side. The view is spectacular.
We came across another plant I believe is named Stork's Bill, unfortunately, with my broken phone, I am not able to look up the plant names to confirm.
We crossed another open field of gold wildflowers and dropped down into another valley, climbing under some blowdowns, and past an area with an old burn scar. The trail was lined with some of these large Silver Bush Lupines. We also found some of these violet colored Nightshades.
We passed a White Globe Lily just prior to arriving at the top of our next waterfall. We chose this beautiful spot for lunch.
After eating, we crossed the algae covered stream feeding the waterfall and headed back up hill passing this beautiful pink flowered plant called the Western Redbud.
Soon we arrived at the top of another Mesa with beautiful, 360° views like the others. This one was being used by some cattle, who stood by protectively watching us as we passed some of their young.
After crossing the Mesa, we came to another steep portion of Trail that you would definitely not want to trip on. It led us to another spectacular waterfall view with more beautiful wildflowers surrounding the trail.
Some of the wild flowers we see here are the Bird’s-Eye Gilia, purple Larkspur, and purple colored Blue Dicks.
After passing another small stream, not pictured, past many more beautiful wildflowers, like the Purple Owl’s-Clover, dark purple Sky Lupine, yellow Seep Monkey Flower and the purple Kellog’s Monkey Flower.
we came to this spectacular water Cascade coming down the hillside into a shallow pool below.
We climbed back up the hillside, passing the top of the cascade, walking along its feeder, Stream across another field and back to our parking spot.
We traveled in one big loop covering 7 miles. The weather was beautiful. There’s an approaching storm front, which kept the temperatures cooler with a slight breeze, but the rain stayed away
