Save Mount Diablo
Protecting the Mountain Since 1971
Summer 1999, No. 26
Discover the Silva Ranch
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iscovering the hidden treaview, and looking farther eastward, the Mount Diablo State Park and Morgan snowcapped Sierra Range can be seen. Territory Regional Park. sures of a new acquisition Adjacent to existing public land, the Although there are huge rock is among Save Mount Diab/o's property boasts a series of beautiful outcroppings and cliffs in Riggs most exciting tasks; one where we feel canyons that will provide single track Canyon, they are almost absent on like the first explorers. And so it was trails and loop connections to both Silva. However, we found a single with wonder and a sense of adventure boulder which was that the board and staff of Save Mount as big as a two story house, hidden in the Diablo walked the entire 3.5 mile fence trees along the line of the Silva Ranch northern boundary. parcel. We traversed This magnificent along broad gentle property includes slopes, across steep many water sources wooded canyons and which provide habitat upward towards plafor a wide range of teaus crowned with plants and animals, six species of oak. We including the federally walked the northernlisted California redmost branch of Taslegged frog. Mature sajara Creek with its riparian woodland mature riparian foris home to nesting est of oak, bay and sharp-shinned and madrone trees and Cooper's hawks, abundant evidence (both special status The Silva Ranch in upper Riggs Canyon, rising to Windy Point of wild pigs. We sampled many species), barn owls, great of the hiking trails previously laid out horned owls, peregrine falcons and 11 by tenant cattle and we walked the the western rattlesnake. Although open forest in the canyon that drains mountain lions have not been sighted, down toward Marsh Creek and they almost certainly utilize the area JttJ Morgan Territory Road. as their presence has been confirmed Scenic vistas with their inherent within public lands on both sides of beauty and solitude abound. From the property. (At the start of the first the ridgeline near Windy and Cave public hike last spring, a jogger Points, the Silva Ranch offers panemerged from the canyon below Silva oramic views into the Tassajara hills having just seen a mountain lion.) 11 and into the Ohlone Wilderness. Majestic stands of oak, bay, sycamore, Throughout the northern parts of the madrone, big leaf maple and buckeye ranch the peaks of Mt. Diablo are in fill the exquisite canyons, with gray
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- Edward Abbey
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