Muir Woods National Monument
Muir Woods National Monument is a unit of the National Park Service on Mount Tamalpais near the Pacific coast, in southwestern Marin County, California. It is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and is 12 miles north of San Francisco and it protects 554 acres, of which 240 acres are old growth coast redwood forests, one of a few such stands remaining in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Muir Woods National Monument is an old-growth coastal redwood forest, due to its proximity to the Pacific Ocean, the forest is regularly shrouded in a coastal marine layer fog, contributing to a wet environment that encourages vigorous plant growth. The fog is vital for the growth of the redwoods as they use moisture from the fog during droughty seasons, the monument is cool and moist year round with average daytime temperatures between 40 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Rainfall is heavy during the winter and summers are almost completely dry with the exception of fog drip caused by the fog passing through the trees.
Annual precipitation in the ranges from 39.4 inches in the lower valley to 47.2 inches higher up in the mountain slopes. The redwoods grow on brown humus-rich loam which may be gravelly and this soil has been assigned to the Centissima series, which is always found on sloping ground. It is well drained, moderately deep, and slightly to moderately acidic and it has developed from a mélange in the Franciscan Formation. More open areas of the park have shallow gravelly loam of the Barnabe series, one hundred and fifty million years ago ancestors of redwood and sequoia trees grew throughout the United States. Today, the Sequoia sempervirens can be only in a narrow, cool coastal belt from Monterey, California. Before the logging industry came to California, there were an estimated 2 million acres of old growth forest containing redwoods growing in a strip along the coast. By the early 20th century, most of these forests had been cut down, just north of the San Francisco Bay, one valley named Redwood Canyon remained uncut, mainly due to its relative inaccessibility.
He and his wife, Elizabeth Thacher Kent, purchased 611 acres of land from the Tamalpais Land and Water Company for $45,000 with the goal of protecting the redwoods and the mountain above them. In 1907, a company in nearby Sausalito planned to dam Redwood Creek. When Kent objected to the plan, the company threatened to use eminent domain. Kent sidestepped the water companys plot by donating 295 acres of the redwood forest to the federal government, on January 9,1908, President Theodore Roosevelt declared the land a National Monument, the first to be created from land donated by a private individual. President Roosevelt agreed, writing back, MY DEAR MR, responding to some photographs of Muir Woods that Mr. Kent had sent him, Those are awfully good photos. Kent and Muir had become friends over shared views of wilderness preservation, in December 1928, the Kent Memorial was erected at the Kent Tree in Fern Canyon
Kings Canyon National Park
Kings Canyon National Park is a national park in the southern Sierra Nevada, east of Fresno, California. The park was established in 1940 and covers 461,901 acres and it incorporated General Grant National Park, established in 1890 to protect the General Grant Grove of giant sequoias. The park is north of and contiguous with Sequoia National Park and they were designated the UNESCO Sequoia-Kings Canyon Biosphere Reserve in 1976. Humans have inhabited the area for thousands of years, the first Native Americans in the area were Paiute peoples, who moved into the region from their ancestral home east of Mono Lake. The Paiute Nation people used deer and other animals for food. They created trade routes that extended down the slope of the Sierra into the Owens Valley. Kings Canyon had been known to white settlers since the mid-19th century, United States Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes fought to create the Kings Canyon National Park. He hired Ansel Adams to photograph and document this among other parks, the bill combined the General Grant Grove with the backcountry beyond Zumwalt Meadow.
Kings Canyons future was in doubt for nearly fifty years, some wanted to build a dam at the western end of the valley, while others wanted to preserve it as a park. The debate was settled in 1965, when the valley, along with Tehipite Valley, was added to the park, Kings Canyon National Park consists of two sections. The parks Giant Sequoia forests are part of 202,430 acres of old-growth forests shared by Sequoia and this section of the park is mostly mixed conifer forest, and is readily accessible via paved highways. Both the South and Middle Forks of the Kings Rivers have extensive glacial canyons, one portion of the South Fork canyon, known as the Kings Canyon, gives the entire park its name. Kings Canyon, with a depth of 8,200 feet, is one of the deepest canyons in the United States. The canyon was carved by glaciers out of granite, the Kings Canyon, and its developed area, Cedar Grove, is the only portion of the main part of the park that is accessible by motor vehicle. Both the Kings Canyon and its Middle Fork twin, Tehipite Valley, are deeply incised, U-shaped glacial gorges with relatively flat floors and towering granite cliffs thousands of feet high.
In addition, the canyon has several systems, one of which is Boyden Cave. To the east of the canyons are the peaks of the Sierra Crest, which attain an elevation of 14,248 feet NAVD88 at the summit of North Palisade. This is classic high Sierra country, barren ridges and glacially scoured lake-filled basins
Death Valley National Park
Death Valley National Park is a national park in the United States. Straddling the border of California and Nevada, located east of the Sierra Nevada, the park protects the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert and contains a diverse desert environment of salt-flats, sand dunes, valleys and mountains. It is the largest national park in the lower 48 states and has declared an International Biosphere Reserve. Approximately 91% of the park is a wilderness area. It is the hottest and lowest of the parks in the United States. The second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere is in Badwater Basin, the park is home to many species of plants and animals that have adapted to this harsh desert environment. Some examples include creosote bush, bighorn sheep and the Death Valley pupfish, several short-lived boom towns sprang up during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to mine gold and silver. The only long-term profitable ore to be mined was borax, which was transported out of the valley with twenty-mule teams, the valley became the subject of books, radio programs, television series, and movies.
Tourism blossomed in the 1920s, when resorts were built around Stovepipe Wells, Death Valley National Monument was declared in 1933 and the park was substantially expanded and became a national park in 1994. The natural environment of the area has been shaped largely by its geology, the valley itself is actually a graben. The oldest rocks are metamorphosed and at least 1.7 billion years old. Ancient, shallow seas deposited marine sediments until rifting opened the Pacific Ocean, additional sedimentation occurred until a subduction zone formed off the coast. This uplifted the region out of the sea and created a line of volcanoes, the crust started to pull apart, creating the current Basin and Range landform. Valleys filled with sediment and, during the wet times of glacial periods, with lakes, in 2013, Death Valley National Park was designated as a dark sky park by the International Dark-Sky Association. There are two valleys in the park, Death Valley and Panamint Valley. Both of these valleys were formed within the last few million years, the result of this shearing action is additional extension in the central part of Death Valley which causes a slight widening and more subsidence there.
Uplift of surrounding mountain ranges and subsidence of the floor are both occurring. The uplift on the Black Mountains is so fast that the fans there are small
Located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in Californias Owens Valley between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north, it is approximately 230 miles north of Los Angeles. Long before the first incarcerees arrived in March 1942, Manzanar was home to Native Americans and miners formally established the town of Manzanar in 1910, but abandoned the town by 1929 after the City of Los Angeles purchased the water rights to virtually the entire area. As different as these groups were, their histories displayed a common thread of forced relocation, the primary focus is the Japanese American incarceration era, as specified in the legislation that created the Manzanar National Historic Site. The site interprets the former town of Manzanar, the days, the settlement by the Owens Valley Paiute. Let us review the main points of the debate, over 120,000 residents of the U. S. A. two thirds of whom were American citizens, were incarcerated under armed guard. There were no crimes committed, no trials, and no convictions, to detain American citizens in a site under armed guard surely constitutes a concentration camp.
But what were the used by the government officials who were involved in the process. Raymond Okamura provides us with a detailed list of terms, lets consider three such euphemisms, evacuation and non-aliens. Earthquake and flood victims are evacuated and relocated, the words refer to moving people in order to rescue and protect them from danger. The official government policy makers consistently used evacuation to refer to the removal of the Japanese Americans. These are euphemisms as the terms do not imply forced removal nor incarceration in enclosures patrolled by armed guards. Hirabayashi went on to describe the harm done by the use of such euphemisms, the harm in continuing to use the governments euphemisms is that it disguises or softens the reality which subsequently has been legally recognized as a grave error. The actions abrogated some fundamental principles underlying the Constitution, the document under which we govern ourselves. This erosion of fundamental rights has consequences for all citizens of our society, some have argued that the Nazi Germany camps during the Holocaust were concentration camps and to refer to the Japanese American camps likewise would be an affront to the Jews.
It is certainly true that the Japanese Americans did not suffer the fate of the Jews in the terrible concentration camps or death camps where Nazi Germany practiced a policy of genocide. Although the loss of life was minimal in Americas concentration camps and Walter Weglyns research concerning Nazi Germanys euphemisms for their concentration camps revealed such phrases as protective custody camps, reception centers, and transit camps. Ironically, two Nazi euphemisms were identical to our governments usage, assembly centers and relocation centers and it might be well to point out, that the Nazis were not operating under the U. S. Constitution. Comparisons usually neglect to point out that Hitler was operating under the rules of the Third Reich
Angel Island (California)
Angel Island is an island in San Francisco Bay offering expansive 360° views of the San Francisco skyline, the Marin County Headlands and Mount Tamalpais. The entire island is included within Angel Island State Park and is administered by California State Parks, Angel Island is the second largest island in area of the San Francisco Bay. The island is so large that on a day and Napa can be seen from the north side of the island. The highest point on the island, almost exactly at its center, is Mount Caroline Livermore at a height of 788 feet, the island is separated from the mainland of Marin County by Raccoon Strait, the depth of the water approximately 90 feet. The United States Census Bureau reported an area of 3.107 km². Until about ten years ago, Angel Island was connected to the mainland. From about two years ago the island was a fishing and hunting site for Coast Miwok Native Americans. Similar evidence of Native American settlement is found on the mainland of the Tiburon Peninsula upon Ring Mountain.
In 1775, the Spanish naval vessel San Carlos made the first European entry to the San Francisco Bay under the command of Juan de Ayala, Ayala anchored off Angel Island, and gave it its modern name, the bay where he anchored is now known as Ayala Cove. In his book Two Years Before the Mast, published in 1840, Richard Henry Dana, like much of the California coast, Angel Island was subsequently used for cattle ranching. In 1863, during the American Civil War, the U. S. Army was concerned about Confederate naval raiders attacking San Francisco and it decided to construct artillery batteries on Angel Island, first at Stuart Point and Point Knox. Col. René Edward De Russy was the Chief Engineer, James Terry Gardiner was the engineer tasked with designing and supervising the work. The Army established a camp on the island, and it became an infantry garrison during the US campaigns against Native American peoples in the West. In the 19th century, the designated the entire island as Fort McDowell and developed further facilities there.
A quarantine station was opened in Ayala Cove in 1891, during the Spanish–American War the island served as a discharge depot for returning troops. It continued to serve as a transit station throughout the first half of the 20th century, at the end of World War I the disembarkation center was commanded by William P. Burnham, who had commanded the 82nd Division in France during the war. In 1938, hearings concerning charges of membership in a political party against labor leader Harry Bridges were held on Angel Island before Dean James Landis of Harvard Law School. After eleven weeks of testimony that filled nearly 8,500 pages, the decision was accepted by the United States Department of Labor and Bridges was freed
John Muir National Historic Site
The John Muir National Historic Site is located in the San Francisco Bay Area, in Martinez, Contra Costa County, California. The main site is on the edge of town, in the shadow of State Route 4, the mansion was built in 1883 by Dr. John Strentzel, Muirs father-in-law, with whom Muir went into partnership, managing his 2, 600-acre fruit ranch. Muir and his wife, moved into the house in 1890, the home contains Muir’s scribble den, as he called his study, and his original desk, where he wrote about many of the ideas that are the bedrock of the modern conservation movement. The Muir house was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1960 and it became a National Historic Site in 1964, is a California Historical Landmark #312 and National Historic Landmark, and is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1988 nearby Mount Wanda Nature Preserve was added to the Historic Site, the John Muir National Historic Site offers a biographical film, tours of the house and nature walks on Mount Wanda.
CA-1890, John Muir House, Alhambra Boulevard, Contra Costa County, CA John Muir National Historic Site
Big Basin Redwoods State Park
Big Basin Redwoods State Park is a state park in the U. S. state of California, located in Santa Cruz County, about 36 km northwest of Santa Cruz. The park contains almost all of the Waddell Creek watershed, which was formed by the uplift of its rim. Big Basin is Californias oldest State Park, established in 1902 and its original 3,800 acres have been increased over the years to over 18,000 acres. It is part of the Northern California coastal forests ecoregion and is home to the largest continuous stand of ancient coast redwoods south of San Francisco. It contains 10,800 acres of old-growth forest as well as recovering redwood forest, with mixed conifer, chaparral, elevations in the park vary from sea level to over 600 m. The climate ranges from foggy and damp near the ocean to sunny, the park has over 130 km of trails. Some of these trails link Big Basin to Castle Rock State Park, the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail threads its way through the park along Waddell Creek to Waddell Beach and the adjacent Theodore J.
Hoover Natural Preserve, a freshwater marsh. The park has a number of waterfalls, a wide variety of environments, many animals and abundant bird life – including Stellers jays, herons. Contrary to popular belief that people did not inhabit the old growth forests, archaeological evidence has been found, although sporadically. Ohlone tribes that lived on watercoures which begin in Big Basin Redwoods State Park were the Quiroste, Achistaca and Sayante. In October 1769 the Portola expedition discovered the redwoods of southern Santa Cruz County, although many in the party had been ill with scurvy, they gorged themselves on berries and quickly recovered. This miraculous recovery, as it seemed at the time, inspired the name given to the valley, although he did not fight Spanish soldiers until early 1793, Charquin had harbored fugitive neophytes since November 1791. Charquin and his followers retreated into the country behind Point Ano Nuevo in late 1791, lands that were equidistant from the missions San Francisco, Santa Clara.
From there he invited dissatisfied neophytes to join him, on January 6,1793, Mission San Francisco servant Diego Olbera baptized a 22-year-old woman on the verge of death ‘at the Quiroste village in the Mountains’. Olbera was probably in the vicinity to convince Charquin and his followers to return to the Mission, but the success of Charquin goaded the soldiers into action. No known diary stemming from any successful expedition against Charquin exists, yet indirect evidence exist that one did take place, and that it occurred in late April and early May 1793. An entry in the Mission San Francisco Libro de Difuntos on May 3,1793 recorded the death of two children of families in the mountain Quiroste Village of Chipletac. Charquin seems to have captured at that time
Fort Point, San Francisco
Fort Point is a masonry seacoast fortification located at the southern side of the Golden Gate at the entrance to San Francisco Bay. This fort was completed just before the American Civil War by the United States Army, the fort is now protected as Fort Point National Historic Site, a United States National Historic Site administered by the National Park Service as a unit of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. In 1769 Spain occupied the San Francisco area and by 1776 had established the areas first European settlement, with a mission and a presidio. To protect against encroachment by the British and Russians, Spain fortified the high white cliff at the narrowest part of the bays entrance, the Castillo de San Joaquin, built in 1794, was an adobe structure housing nine to thirteen cannons. Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, gaining control of the region and the fort, following the United States victory in 1848, California was annexed by the U. S. and became a state in 1850. The gold rush of 1849 had caused rapid settlement of the area, military officials soon recommended a series of fortifications to secure San Francisco Bay.
Coastal defenses were built at Alcatraz Island, Fort Mason, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers began work on Fort Point in 1853. Plans specified that the lowest tier of artillery be as close as possible to water level so cannonballs could ricochet across the surface to hit enemy ships at the water-line. Workers blasted the 90-foot cliff down to 15 feet above sea level, the structure featured seven-foot-thick walls and multi-tiered casemated construction typical of Third System forts. It was sited to defend the maximum amount of harbor area, while there were more than 30 such forts on the East Coast, Fort Point was the only one on the West Coast. In 1854 Inspector General Joseph K. Mansfield declared this point as the key to the whole Pacific Coast. a crew of 200, many unemployed miners, labored for eight years on the fort. In 1861, with war looming, the army mounted the forts first cannon, colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, commander of the Department of the Pacific, prepared Bay Area defenses and ordered in the first troops to the fort.
Kentucky-born Johnston resigned his commission to join the Confederate Army, throughout the Civil War, artillerymen at Fort Point stood guard for an enemy that never came. Troops soon moved out of Fort Point, and it was never again occupied by the army. The fort was important enough to receive protection from the elements. In 1869 a granite seawall was completed, the following year, some of the forts cannon were moved to Battery East on the bluffs nearby, where they were more protected. In 1882 Fort Point was officially named Fort Winfield Scott after the hero from the war against Mexico. The name never caught on and was applied to an artillery post at the Presidio
Lassen Volcanic National Park
Lassen Volcanic National Park is a United States National Park in northeastern California. The dominant feature of the park is Lassen Peak, the largest plug dome volcano in the world, Lassen Volcanic National Park started as two separate national monuments designated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, Cinder Cone National Monument and Lassen Peak National Monument. The source of heat for volcanism in the Lassen area is subduction off the Northern California coast of the Gorda Plate diving below the North American Plate, the area surrounding Lassen Peak is still active with boiling mud pots, stinking fumaroles, and churning hot springs. Lassen Volcanic National Park is one of the few areas in the world where all four types of volcano can be found, the park is accessible via State Routes SR89 and SR44. SR89 passes north-south through the park, beginning at SR36 to the south, SR89 passes immediately adjacent the base of Lassen Peak. A large lodge with concession facilities was located near the south-west entrance, a new, full-service visitor center was constructed in the same location, and opened to the public in 2008.
Near the old location was located Lassen Ski Area. Native Americans have inhabited the area long before white settlers first saw Lassen. The natives knew that the peak was full of fire and water, White immigrants in the mid-19th century used Lassen Peak as a landmark on their trek to the fertile Sacramento Valley. One of the guides to these immigrants was a Danish blacksmith named Peter Lassen, Lassen Peak was named after him. Nobles Emigrant Trail was cut through the area and passed Cinder Cone. Inconsistent newspaper accounts reported by witnesses from 1850 to 1851 described seeing fire thrown to a terrible height, as late as 1859, a witness reported seeing fire in the sky from a distance, attributing it to an eruption. Early geologists and volcanologists who studied the Cinder Cone concluded the last eruption occurred between 1675 and 1700, after the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, the United States Geological Survey began reassessing the potential risk of other active volcanic areas in the Cascade Range.
Further study of Cinder Cone estimated the last eruption occurred between 1630 and 1670, recent tree-ring analysis has placed the date at 1666. The Lassen area was first protected by being designated as the Lassen Peak Forest Preserve, Lassen Peak and Cinder Cone were declared as U. S. National Monuments in May 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt. Starting in May 1914 and lasting until 1921, a series of minor to major eruptions occurred on Lassen and these events created a new crater, and released lava and a great deal of ash. Fortunately, because of warnings, no one was killed, because of the eruptive activity, which continued through 1917, and the areas stark volcanic beauty, Lassen Peak, Cinder Cone and the area surrounding were declared a National Park on August 9,1916. The 29-mile Main Park Road was constructed between 1925 and 1931, just 10 years after Lassen Peak erupted, near Lassen Peak the road reaches 8,512 feet, making it the highest road in the Cascade Mountains
Channel Islands (California)
The Channel Islands of California are a chain of eight islands located in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of southern California along the Santa Barbara Channel in the United States of America. Five of the islands are part of Channel Islands National Park, the islands were first colonized by the Chumash and Tongva Native Americans 13,000 years ago, who were displaced by European settlers who used the islands for fishing and agriculture. The U. S. military uses the islands as training grounds, weapons test sites, the Channel Islands and the surrounding waters house a diverse ecosystem with many endemic species and subspecies. Eight islands are split among the jurisdictions of three separate California counties, Santa Barbara County, Ventura County, and Los Angeles County, the islands are divided into two groups, the northern Channel Islands and the southern Channel Islands. The four northern Islands used to be a single known as Santa Rosae. The archipelago extends for 160 miles between San Miguel Island in the north and San Clemente Island in the south, the islands’ land area totals 221,331 acres, or about 346 square miles.
Five of the islands were made into the Channel Islands National Park in 1980, the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary encompasses the waters six nautical miles off Anacapa, Santa Cruz, San Miguel, Santa Rosa, and Santa Barbara islands. Santa Catalina Island is the one of the eight islands with a significant permanent civilian settlement—the resort city of Avalon, California. Natural seepage of oil occurs at places in the Santa Barbara Channel. Tar balls or pieces of tar in small numbers are found in the kelp, Native Americans used naturally occurring tar, for a variety of purposes which include roofing, waterproofing and some ceremonial purposes. The Channel Islands at low elevations are virtually frost-free and constitute one of the few areas in the 48 contiguous US states. It snows only rarely, on mountain peaks. Separated from the California mainland throughout recent geological history, the Channel Islands provide the earliest evidence for seafaring in the Americas. It is the site of the discovery of the earliest paleontological evidence of humans in North America, the northern Channel Islands are now known to have been settled by maritime Paleo Indian peoples at least 13,000 years ago.
Archaeological sites on the island provide a unique and invaluable record of human interaction with Channel Island marine, the northern islands were occupied by the island Chumash, while the southern islands were occupied by the Tongva. Author Scott ODell wrote about the peoples living on the island in his novel Island of the Blue Dolphins. Aleut hunters visited the islands to hunt otters in the early 1800s, the Aleuts purportedly clashed with the native Chumash, killing many over trading disputes. Aleut interactions with the natives were detailed in ODells book, the Chumash and Tongva were removed from the islands in the early 19th century, taken to Spanish missions and pueblos on the adjacent mainland
Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean located on the coast of the U. S. state of California. The bay is south of the cities of San Francisco. The county-seat city of Santa Cruz is located at the end of the bay. The city of Monterey is on the Monterey Peninsula at the south end, the Monterey Bay Area is a local colloquialism sometimes used to describe the whole of the Central Coast communities of Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. The first European to discover Monterey Bay was Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo on November 16,1542 while sailing northward along the coast on a Spanish naval expedition. He named the bay Bahía de los Pinos, probably because of the forest of pine trees first encountered while rounding the peninsula at the end of the bay. Cabrillos name for the bay was lost, but the westernmost point of the peninsula is known as Point Pinos. On December 10,1595, Sebastián Rodríguez Cermeño crossed the bay, the present name for the bay was documented in 1602 by Sebastián Vizcaíno, who had been tasked by the Spanish government to complete a detailed chart of the coast.
He anchored in what is now the Monterey harbor on December 16, Monterrey is an alternate spelling of Monterrei, a municipality in the Galicia region of Spain from which the viceroy and his father originated. All other place names in the vicinity containing Monterey were so named because of their proximity to the bay and this includes the Presidio of Monterey, City of Monterey, County of Monterey and Monterey Canyon. The Monterey Canyon, one of the largest underwater canyons in the world, begins off the coast of Moss Landing, killer whales are found along the coast, especially when Gray whales migrate, as they hunt the whales during their migration north. Many species of fish, mollusks such as abalone and squid, several varieties of kelp grow in the bay, some becoming as tall as trees, forming what is known as a kelp forest. Ricketts State Marine Conservation Area and Asilomar State Marine Reserve are marine protected areas in Monterey Bay, like underwater parks, these marine protected areas help conserve ocean wildlife and marine ecosystems.
Clockwise around the bay, generally north to south