This looks like a California Newt emerging from a creek, but in reality it's just crossing a trail. Over the last couple of months, I've joked about how it seems that all of the rain withheld during the multiple-year California drought was unleashed over the course of this winter. In any event, the swiftly saturated ground couldn't handle the deluge, so runoff swamped many of the trails, either due to culverts being blocked or simply because the water had nowhere else to go. It made hiking an adventure.
Speaking of creeks, this is what Todd Creek in Sanborn Park looked like after a landslide dumped some extra trees, rock, and soil into it. For over a month, I was actually a bit nervous letting kids near the water, let alone hiking up the creek. Now, from the vantage point of Spring, things are more or less back to normal, although due to the flooding and sliding, in some places it's a new normal.
Just past Todd Creek there is an old landslide that took away a section of trail back in the nineties. The rangers put up a fence so hikers wouldn't march off the new cliff and die, and a single track detour trail eventually allowed access to where the main trail picked up on the other side. This winter, as one can see from the precarious condition of the fence, more earth slid away. Sometime after this photo was taken, the fence succumbed to gravity. It now lies broken at the bottom of the newly scoured ravine. Most of the trees that started growing after the original slide now lie shattered downhill somewhere. In addition to this, the detour trail is simply gone, like a giant took an ice cream scoop to the hillside.
Lastly, here's a photo taken up Todd Creek Road, showing one of several slides that temporarily blocked access. The only people who ever drive up this road are park rangers and camp maintenance staff, but we routinely hike groups of kids up and down it. It's a good thing we're flexible. Many plans were changed on the fly this winter.
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