 CHILAO PLANT WALKS Sponsored by California Native Plant Society - San Gabriel Mountains Chapter and USDA Forest Service Chilao Visitor Center and SGMHA WHEN AND WHERE: Plant walks will be the first Saturday of the month. We meet at the Chilao Visitor Center parking lot at 10:00 am. Walks will be a mixture of car tours and short hikes lasting two or more hours. People could eat at Newcomb's or bring their own picnic. LOGISTICS: Car pooling is best done at the intersection of the 2 and the 210. There is lots of free parking. It is 45 minutes or 27 miles from that point to the Visitor Center. If an Adventure Pass is needed, you can stop at the Clear Creek Information Station on the way up and get one. Clear Creek is open from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm. If the roads are icy or chains required or otherwise closed [fire or accident or race], the trip will be cancelled. You can call Clear Creek and check about the road conditions before you go. Telephone is 626 821 6764. You can also call Chilao Visitor Center at 626 796 5541 but they are less likely to know. CNPS-SGM contact is Candy Byers, phone 818 793-9661. You may also check this page for updates, reports and cancellations. You will need a full tank of gas. You will need water and snacks. This is more important than you might think because you need to be prepared for waiting out road closures while they clean up after accidents or fires. This usually takes three hours. You might want bug spray. I always use tick spray on my pant legs and boots because I am tick magnet and have a tendency to wander off through brush. I get ticks at any season. A TENTATIVE SCHEDULE OF THEMES: Fall Season 1) Fall Colors, Buckhorn to Mill Creek, rabbitbrush and deciduous trees 2) Necrobotany, for Halloween and Day of the Dead, looking at the dead plants, i.e, seed pods, this is really fun! 3) Plants the Indians Harvested, Indian basketry materials Winter Season 4) Mistletoes and Myths 5) Sagebrush Ecology 6) Manzanitas and other winter bloomers Spring Season 7) Ceanothus and how chaparral plants adapt 8) Early bloomers like the geophytes 9) Mt Gleason Paintbrush and other rare plants Summer Season 10) High Country Wildflowers and Butterflies 11) Snowmelt gullies 12) Buckwheat family and other cliff dwellers Just ideas. All subject to change, of course.
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