 Well, good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Whatever you're listening. This is Davisville on KDRT LP 95.7 FM in Davis, California. We live at KDRT.org online. I'm Bill Buchanan. Thank you for tuning in Well, it's often said that some places you should be sure to see are ones you never do because they're close and so because you could go anytime you never get around to it for those of us who live in the Davis area, the Beriesa region could qualify as such a place. Most of us know there's a reservoir up there, a lake, plus mountains that create the west side of the valley we live in. But if we're fortunate enough to have time and ability to see some of California's natural splendors, we might more readily head off to the Pacific Coast or to Yosemite or Lake Tahoe or the Redwoods. A few geologists and naturalists in Davis have written a book that should help move Beriesa more into the foreground and one of them is on our show today, Mark Oshofsky, a retired naturalist who lives in Davis. The other writers are Eldridge and Judith Morris, Peter Schiffman and Bob Schneider. And their book is Exploring the Beriesa Region, a Geology, Nature and History Tour. Mark, thanks for joining us today. You're welcome. Thank you. You know, as I read through the book, I thought this is a really good book for summer when late sunsets and clear skies create room to get outside. Why focus on Beriesa? Beriesa is an area that has incredibly complex geology and a lot of geological wonders in that area. And most people don't necessarily appreciate it. Geologists around the world have actually appreciated it and fly in from all over to look at it. The area is also part of a new national monument, the Beriesa Snow Mountain National Monument, that just celebrated its 50th anniversary last week or so. It also has a lot of, it's an ecological transition zone between the Sacramento Valley and the coast and you can see a lot of changes in vegetation as you go through. And there's some interesting history, both Indigenous people, some of the opening of California with the bear flag revolt and other history since then. So tell us, it's a very interesting area from three different perspectives. And could you define the region for us a little bit? As you pointed out, it includes the Snow Mountain and so it's much more than just the lake itself. The national monument extends all the way from Lake Beriesa all the way up to Snow Mountain and I think it's Colusia County. Our book is focusing on just the Beriesa region, which is the southern one-fifth of that monument. It's the area from winters out to Lake Beriesa itself on the west side. And then west into Pope Valley and Charles Valley and Capell Valley, that area, it gets a little bit into the Napa watershed, but not very much. People from Napa can easily access this area as well as people from the Sacramento Valley sign. One of the things that honestly I appreciated about the book, but I wanted to ask about is that you've, sort of the heart of the book is basically a car tour where people could follow, I think it's about a 21-mile route, although you say it would take all day if someone follows it with the hikes you suggest. Why focus on that route as opposed to say hiking or something? Why focus on the road? The road gives you access to a lot of different locations around the region. The actual route of the road guide is over 100 miles actually. It allows you to see a variety of geological features from the Great Valley group near the, on the eastern edge, some subduction zones over on the west side of Lake Beriesa, some really deeply buried Franciscan rocks that have been dragged up from 18 miles below the surface. So the road tour gives you ability to look at all of those different features as well as seeing different elements of history for the area. The, you know, you talked about geology and it struck me actually at the very start where you said this area is known to geologists around the world and of course if you're not a geologist you wouldn't necessarily know that and it makes me think you know traveling someplace far away and saying I'm from this area that a geologist would go you're near Beriesa whereas locally you might think yeah why does it matter? Yeah, maybe not all geologists will be fascinated. We will know the name Beriesa but they know the coast of California as this incredible continental collision zone and where you have one continental plate being dragged under the other and then that whole exposure being put up on land for people to walk around and drive around and look at. Most places in the world you would have to go in a submersible down into the deep ocean to see this. So this is an area where it's really exposed and a lot of structural geologists know about this so they can go and learn and see that directly just by driving to it. So now that's an interesting comment that the geology of that area in most places in the world would be underwater. Do I understand that correctly? Well at a subjection zone where you have an oceanic plate being pushed down underneath a continental plate like North America. So you'll see this off the coast of South America you see it in various places at these margins of the continental plates but to say off the coast of South America you would have to go down into the trench off the ocean to actually see the submarine fans that flow out into the abyssal plain to see all of the the it's a rock factory where you have serpentine being pushed up some of these areas have serpentine mud volcanoes that are like 15 kilometers across they're only down in the bottom of the Mariana's trench in the in the western Pacific. We have mud volcanoes exposed right here at Areasa up on land. You know in reading the book one of the things that kind of fired my imagination was reading about the lava in this area which I think it's described in the book as saying that it's similar to lava that's in eastern Oregon and Idaho and up by Yosemite and it just fires the imagination to think that lava from a place like that might have come here. Yeah this is the lovejoy basalt which is exposed on this tour only at the mouth of Puttacreek Canyon and it has flowed 150 miles as hot liquid lava from the northern Sierra up near Susanville and the this is related to a lot of the the flood basalts that are out in the Columbia Plateau of eastern Oregon and Washington. This came out around 14 million years ago and actually flooded at one point some 25 percent of the Sacramento Valley over repeated flows and one of them has extended all the way down to actually goes to Vacaville along the western edge of the Sacramento Valley. Climbers who go to Browns Valley open space will see basaltic boulders there they climb on those boulders that has actually come from the area up around Susanville. So this is like a secret history of the region. I mean maybe it's not really a secret I guess it's known if you look for it but I mean I don't think of this place as having anything to do with volcanoes. Right and this is really well this is one of the most this is one of the volcanic features of the area actually if you go on the western edge of our region you get up into the area east of Napa onto Angwin in Powell Mountain. Those areas are actually covered by the Sonoma Volcanics and Clear Lake Volcanics they're less eight million years old. As you get into the Napa Valley there's a lot more of volcanics and a lot of the vineyards are grown on volcanic soils very productive for them. You know we've been talking about the geology and such the book contains quite a bit beyond the geology you talked about you know the the history of the people of the area. I mean that could be a book in itself but I was interested to read that there have been at least seven different Native American groups over the past 12,000 years that have lived in this area that the book is talking about and then that leads us to the Pat Wynn the Winton and the Lake Miwok who currently inhabit the area. Could you tell us a little bit about these as I say that could be a book by itself but could you tell us a little about these original inhabitants and what you find of them in the Bariasa region? When we say that there's about seven different tribes or peoples those are in the national monument the full length of it. California has had one of the most culturally diverse areas in terms of indigenous people in North America so divided up there's so many different tribes and peoples and even the Pat Wynn people themselves. Pat Wynn is a name that the anthropologists used to group people that spoke languages similar but they would not call themselves Pat Wynn they just live in bands and they just speak a similar language so they're not like a unified group there. The Pat Wynn are the people that cover most of the area of our guide the Lake Miwok come in from or live up near Middletown and they had some villages in the upper Pope Valley area. Most of the Pat Wynn were actually south of Rumsie and Cape Valley they were pretty much exterminated by the 1870s and 1880s due to disease like malaria and smallpox they were killed off so there was hardly there was no no Pat Wynn alive south of there by then. Those survivors were up in the northern parts and they settled and they were given land around the Cape Valley for the Cache Creek Rancheria the Lake Miwok settled in their Middletown for the Middletown Rancheria so they're both thriving fairly well as as well as Native Americans are doing nowadays their diversified economy and bringing money from branching and other kinds of agricultural products. Well and and of course the casino is one descendant I guess of this because this was their land and by the way the laws have changed over the years it's such that they could have a casino there. Are there village sites and such in the mountains that are at all visible? The village sites are known really from historical records archaeologists know where they are there's there's not really much left in those areas. Various of valley for example was home for all had a lot of archaeological sites before it was flooded and those areas are now underwater so most of those villages as I said there was a lot of extermination of native Californians so by the time the early settlers showed up in the 1840s and 50s there were very few people left from that time. What are one or two things that you know if you were recommending to somebody first time visiting that region? What are one or two things that you think they should be sure to see? The um it really depends on the the interests of the person if you're interested for example in history just knowing uh as driving up Puttacreek Canyon and and looking at Monticello Dam and understanding the history of the Puttacreek Turnpike the first road through those mountains the first wagon road the quarry that used to be there the understanding the history of development of that dam also to look at Lake Berries and appreciate the history before 1957 when the dam was completed and how that landscape has changed and then there's also on the northern end there's a route that Fremont used to get out over into the Sacramento Valley related to the the California and Mexican war. Oh that was John Fremont the explorer. Right he actually sent some spies up Puttacreek Canyon to get from Sacramento over to Sonoma before the bear flag revolt and they used that route to avoid being detected by the Mexicans down at Vallejo. The bear flag revolt we should mention that was back to going to the start of California's estate correct where the land was under the control of Mexico and this was a revolt against that. Yeah California was part of Mexico up until that event. Vallejo was living general Vallejo was living in Vallejo and he was not getting much support from the Mexican government when Fremont came in and rallied up the increasing American settlers in the area and he thought it would be great to get California's part of the United States and Vallejo really was didn't put up much of a fight it was like sure whatever he was not getting any support from the Mexicans so that was the bear flag revolt in Sonoma and that led to California becoming part of the United States. To a quick station ID we are talking with Mark Hoshofsky he is one of the writers of a book called Exploring the Berryessa Region a Geology, Nature, and History Tour. I'm Bill Buchanan and this program is Davisville on KDRTLP 95.7 in Davis. What are some of the good hikes up there? There's some really nice views of the valley aren't there? There are a very popular hike on the east side of course is Cold Canyon which is a UC natural reserves very popular place it's near Monticello Dam. There are some other hikes up on the north end of Berryessa out of Pope Valley there's a Pope Valley Pope Creek to Putacreek Trail which goes up over the mountains and ends up on Putacreek as it comes into Lake Berryessa. A lot of the land is there's quite a bit of private land in the area there's a lot of conservation easements that have been placed on that land this conservation easements do not make the land publicly accessible but it does keep the land in a protected status so people do have to be concerned about and be sensitive to private lands out there. A good spot to find out more information about trails is the Tuleomi website that's T-U-L-E-Y-O-M-E and they have a great index of trails that are available on public land. The book says if I understand correctly that the area is more biologically diverse than most of the United States. Does that read that correctly and if so kind of how did that happen that this one region ended up with such diversity? There's a lot of biological diversity in the coast range so it's not just simply the Berryessa region this really includes the area all the way up into the full national monument. So it includes areas that have a lot of coastal influence than interior valley influence like the Sacramento. The east side of the mountains are a rain shadow so it's much drier and you have a lot more grass and blue equidland. As you go west you get into moisture fog areas that have this lace beautiful lace like hanging from the trees. Going north you get up into higher elevations of the Mendocino National Forest and you also have areas with redwoods out on the near Pope Valley you can find redwoods. So there is quite a bit of diversity. The biologic one of the richest biological parts are the serpentine soils and serpentine is a challenging soil for most plants to grow on it has chemical imbalance and it's a host for a lot of rare plants so you'll find outcrops of serpentine throughout this region that hosts those plants. So if I understand correctly it's and of course there's also altitude. When I first came to Yolo County I was surprised that there are mountains in Yolo County that go to 4,000 feet because living in Davis I think we're 15 feet or 50 feet it just doesn't seem to compute but there's difference in altitude there's difference in rain there's difference in topography and and so all that combined just engenders this diversity of biodiversity. Right yeah the the early settlers when they were in in the Sacramento Valley as they looked to the west they saw the Blue Ridge. The Blue Ridge is essentially a 2,500 foot high mountain wall that's about 40 miles long and trying to navigate that was a challenge for them. They found a route up Pooda Creek and they created Pooda Creek Turnpike. The other route over it was out of Cape Valley out of Brooks that went up about 1,700 feet over to Lake Berryessa and then eventually well to Berryessa Valley at the time and led up to Clear Lake. They were getting up they're going up there for the mercury mining area primarily in some of the borax deposits. In fact I want to ask about I was surprised how many mines there were up there too. I read in the book the references to dozens of mining sites but it wasn't for gold right? Right the um in the broader region beyond Berryessa there was quite a bit of mercury mining they were using the mercury to export over to the 49er area over in the Sierra where people were needed mercury for extracting gold so there's a lot of mercury mining out of the out of that region. They also extracted chromite and magnetite from the serpentine so there were some fairly large mines in the area in the late 1800s those are now mostly gone and abandoned. So you've spent quite a bit of time up there I'm sure over the years. First how did you discover it? I mean you're a naturalist but did you grow up in this region or what first drew you out there? Well I've been living in in Davis for about 35 years and I am just obsessively curious about all kinds of places and I like to go exploring all the time. So I'm out traveling through the Berryessa region I actually do a lot of hiking in the Sierra as well a lot of different places and the Berryessa region is close and during the winter time is really the best time to be out hiking and exploring that area. There are times after the fires that are burned through that the wildflowers are just incredible it's just an amazing wildflower display and it just was a local area that I found fascinating and I knew about the geological background on it but I could never I'd been on a few trips with Eldridge Morse. He and Judy led public tours of geology for about 20-25 years in that area and I'd been on several of his trips and I didn't I wasn't satisfied with understanding the area so that's why I thought it was useful to work with Eldridge to create a more in-depth description that would be available for people and an easy to read way to explain more what he was trying to say on his field trips. Well and that that's a question I wanted to ask as well is what led you all to write this book and several of you archaeologists either by profession or training I mean is that how you met and is that how you decided you just said look Berryessa needs this kind of a guidebook? We've all known each other over the years. Peter Schiffman is an emeritus professor and has worked alongside Eldridge who was an emeritus professor at UC Davis they worked alongside together for decades and Bob Schneider has been involved in a lot of conservation issues and I've been involved in conservation issues so we kind of know each other the drive was partly when I wanted to learn more about the area and I felt that if I wrote myself a road guide and if I could understand it that would teach me more about the geology but I ran into some problems with understanding geology maps there were two maps next to each other that just did not match up so like I asked Eldridge if he knew somebody who could help me figure that out and he was willing to go out into the field with me and as we were out in the field looking at stuff I said we should just take your road guide the simple three page thing that you have and turn it into a book that other people could read and get access to and Bob Schneider joined in on that and Peter said oh I want to enjoy that and Judy is a big part of the program as well as Judy on her tour on the tours that Eldridge and Judy led Judy's element was sort of bringing in the humanistic side of things talking about the poetry and appreciating the beauty and all the sort of things that were different than what Eldridge focused on which was the science part I think the book reflects that I mean you can as a reader anyway I looked at it and it's a good armchair travel book as well I mean it makes me want to get out there and see some of these things but I could just sit there and look at the photos and the stories about the people and the different locations and be drawn into it and the maps I really appreciated I have this sense of the region but it's pretty rustic area even now you know if you look at a map it doesn't necessarily help you comprehend it at a detailed level well except in your book it does I mean I see all these different things so in all the times you've been out there name out if you would a favorite moment you've had out there maybe something you've seen or some realization I think the being in either Chiles Valley or the Bariessa Valley and having taken the geology maps these geology maps you'll see in the book lots of different colors left the lines but a geologist can interpret that and recreate a three-dimensional structure in his or her head about what that geology is I created a cross section from that and it really showed me how the the the whole area has been folded into these huge anaclines and synclines and then being out there in the field and just looking at when you say when you go to Monticello Dam you see all of that vertical bedding if you can visualize that bedding extending up into the air it's just been eroded it's been gone but visualize what it used to be was a big structural hill that went off over Bariessa Valley and visualizing the loss of the erosion of all of that material down the canyons into the ocean now you just see the pieces of it but you you know there's this incredible structure underneath I thought that was fascinating so an anticline and syncline I take it to geological terms for a certain kind of a formation but now listening to you right now I got a sense maybe this is part of the reason at least why some of us will go out and take hikes is because you see the thing there in front of you but it's like looking at the stars too you also see something larger something that maybe isn't right there right now but you can kind of see or feel the traces of it that's one of the reasons maybe to go out and get into nature yeah I have um I work professionally as an ecologist but I have a degree in geology and a long history I'm just you know passionate with that but I also enjoy photography and I find that a lot of people pass through the landscape either hiking or driving and for them it's mostly just a blur it's like either green stuff or whatever sometimes they see a nice view but if you slow down and you really look more carefully at things well when I go hiking people are a little frustrated because I'm always looking at things and I'm just checking out and wondering about why does this plant grow here why is that rock over there and I'm hoping that the book can help people slow down a little bit more and to look at the world and get a richer experience from traveling through that area you know it also struck me reading the book that the dam Lake Berry Esso was created by by the dam in the 1950s California hasn't built a new major reservoir in about 40 years so that was fairly late in California's cycle of building dams and such if the lake weren't there what would be there well what existed before the dam was a fairly rich agricultural area and they were doing a lot of farming in the area there was a town of Monticello there was a town of there was a cemetery that had to be moved up by Spanish flat with the construction of the dam so a fairly flat agricultural valley with a small town in the area and it becomes visible when the lake gets low enough right I mean not that there's much there now there's the foundations and I gather there's an old bridge and things like that right you can there is a bridge down near the just above the dam that was one of the largest stone span bridges at its time in western in the western U.S. that's all underwater now I'm not sure if that dam actually can be seen when the lake is low enough I did not get a chance to get out there during some of the extreme droughts to to see any exposure of that I've seen it over in Folsom Lake and other places but I I did not get a chance to see it at Berry Esso I've seen some photos and I mean it looks like the bottom of a reservoir in a drought I mean the the ground is very I don't know what that is you know dust looks like anyway well we're about to wrap up for today but when's when's your next trip out there how often do you go well the summer is not really a great time to be out there unless you're out there at some you know five or six in the morning when the temperatures are reasonable it gets quite hot people will go out there and you know it could be 90 100 degrees or so so I usually wait until about late October to get out there and start hiking and it's still rather dry but my favorite time for exploring the area is from about February through early May that's when most the flowers are out it's green I've led a number of hikes for groups like put a creek council and Audubon in the area I'd like to be able to do that again once we can get over this virus situation I'd love to be able to do some public tours following this guide out there but that's carpooling there's all these different constraints we're facing right now well it'll be there and your book I imagine will be there too so Mark thank you very much for talking with us today you're quite welcome Bill we've been talking with Mark Koshofsky who is one of the contributors writers of exploring the Berryessa region a geology nature and history tour I'm Bill Buchanan this is Davis Phil on KDRT thank you for listening