Los Vaqueros Watershed On a Stormy Day

I was disappointed to get into the preserve pretty late, but this was kind of cancelled out by the 60+ mph winds at the tops of the ridges (by the ranger's estimate.) The reservoir had whitecaps in it. The only trail I've done worse than this was Tongariro Crossing in New Zealand, and that was during an Antarctic storm when the ranger told me "This is a stupid idea." Plus, that East Bay clay is nasty (slippery and clingy) when it's wet, and makes going up and down the steep trails more like skiing than I would've liked. The drive there was kind of cool, since you're in the central valley but then will cross a small drawbridge next to a marina and realize that all these rivers and sloughs and lakes are contiguous with the Bay (you don't expect to see a marina somewhere like Stockton, but in fact there's a US Navy base there.) Los Vaqueros is interesting partly because it's right at the eastern edge of the hills and an ecosystem boundary runs through it, transitioning from scrub oak to Central Valley prairie on the eastern side. In the last few pictures there's some very clear cattle terracing going on. Always interesting that they can draw contour lines in reality rather than just on a map. Obscure joke of the day - chalk up one for instrumental over epistemic rationality!
























Above and below: cows are standing roughly inside the red circle. See? They've drawn higher-resolution contour lines on the actual Earth than Caltopo did on the map. Outstanding!