More Wildflowers at Table Mountain

About a week ago I shared photos from our first visit to North Table Mountain Ecological Reserve. We returned earlier this week and explored part of the Reserve that we had not seen last time.

This view isn’t far from the parking lot. We followed the trail that heads to South Mesa.

That trail heads through more of the oak woodland before breaking out onto the mesa.

On the mesa we had a view of the Sacramento Valley and the Sutter Buttes. We wanted to follow the trail marked on our map as the Many Waterfalls loop, but maybe the key word in the description of this route was “cross-country”. There doesn’t seem to be a very defined trail that isn’t just another cow trail. But we knew we wanted to head to the rim of the mesa and follow that rim to see the marked waterfalls.

We saw expanses of yellow on the mesa.

This flower is Dwarf Stonecrop.

It is a relatively small flower but en masse it is quite impressive. It is the dominant species in the bright yellow strips. Goldfields makes up the more orange parts.

Goldfields interspersed with Tidy Tips and lupines.

This is the Tidy Tips up close.

Another view of the valley and the Sutter Buttes. We’re getting closer to the edge of the mesa and Table Mountain.

This is a panorama view of the same location.

We came across useful signs occasionally but it would have been good if we had an app to show us exactly where the GPS coordinates were. We’ll have to figure that out for next time. We missed some of the trails that we had planned to take because in some places it was hard to know where there was actually a trail. We ended up hiking about 8-1/2 miles instead of the 11 miles marked on the map.

The sign above is describing this formation, appropriately called Crevice Falls. Surprisingly there was still some water in some of these. There must be water flowing from springs that run through the basalt layer.

I realized that Ladder Falls was not named for the creek bed of the waterfall but because there is this old pipe ladder to enable people to access the trail.

This trail took us back through more oak woodland grazing area. There are some very large old oaks throughout this part of the reserve.

After our last visit I bought a book that describes the flowers and ecology of North Table Mountain. That was helpful in identifying some of the photos I took. This is a poppy species called Frying Pans.

Kellogg’s Clarkia.

White-headed Navarretia.

I knew I had to find this flower when I saw it in the book. It’s called Cowbag Clover and if the photo was better you could see that, yes, it looks like an upside down cow udder.

This flower is known as Butter-and-Eggs. That is one I already knew from having seen it in other areas.

We spent a beautiful day hiking here and I look forward to returning next winter and spring.