By Kathleen Wong, UC Natural Reserve System Tim Brown spends his summers on top of the Golden State. While other Californians tan at the beach, hold BBQs, or relax at the pool, he makes a beeline for the high country. Striding across snowfields and rock scree atop eastern California’s highest ranges, this UC Santa Cruz […]
Valentine Camp
Not your average school day in Mammoth Lakes
From UC Santa Barbara Mammoth Lakes is a resort town in Mono County in the Eastern Sierra just south of Yosemite. While its population swells during tourist season, just over 8,000 residents live in the remote area year-round. For 2,000 elementary school children each year, UC Santa Barbara’s Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserves’ (VESR) Outdoor Science […]
Thinning Valentine Camp’s forest to save it
To step into Valentine Camp is to enter the forest from a childhood fairy tale. Dense stands of Jeffrey pine, red fir, and lodgepole pine line its access road and cloak slopes that tilt east toward the Sierra Nevada. The trees grow so thick that it is easy to imagine Hansel and Gretel getting lost […]
Confluence: Drawings and Photographs
Berkeley artist Todd Gilens made a series of drawings and photographs informed by time spent in the Sierra Nevada with scientists from NRS reserves. He visited Valentine Camp, Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory, Yosemite Field Station, and Sagehen Creek Field Station during the 2015-18 field seasons. He’s now assembling this body of work into an […]
California Heartbeat Initiative soars ahead
A University of California project to study the availability of water in California’s ecosystems is off to a soaring start. The California Heartbeat Initiative (CHI) uses drones, sap flow meters, and other remote sensing techniques to monitor the water status of plants across large swaths of the landscape. The project aims to interpret water status […]
Major gift to Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserves
Valentine Eastern Sierra Reserves gets $1 million gift to expand support for students, staff and researchers, and to upgrade infrastructure
Doctor drought
UC Santa Cruz professor Michael Loik tests how plants respond to climate extremes Acute drought is parching Santa Cruz. For the past four years, the coastal prairie of Younger Lagoon Reserve, on the west end of town, has received just over half the rain that normally falls. The situation is so dire it’s likely to […]
The Golden Forest
by Julie Cohen, UC Santa Barbara Situated between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the coastal plain to the north and the unique Northern Channel Islands archipelago to the south, the coastal zone of Southern California near Santa Barbara is especially alluring. A new children’s book, The Golden Forest (Muddy Boots, 2017), delves into […]