Felton, California
Felton is a census-designated place in Santa Cruz County, United States. The population was 4,057 as of 2010 census and according to the United States Census Bureau, Felton, a former Oakland, California mayor, a judge and a San Francisco Bay Area investor in his day, the town is a historic logging community. Shortly after the Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad began operation, a rail line began operation in 1880 from Alameda and San Jose. A new depot was constructed at New Felton using salvaged materials from a portion of the San Lorenzo Valley Logging Flume from Boulder Creek. The railroads and forest in this area provided a majority of the materials for the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The standard gauge railroad line came into Felton by 1909, in 1927, the Felton community of Lompico, was established. In 1963, the steam-powered Roaring Camp Railroad began tourist operations on the Big Trees Ranch out of the Old Felton Depot. The company constructed a logging camp and another depot further down the property.
Felton is home to the Felton Covered Bridge, an 80-foot-long covered bridge over the San Lorenzo River built in 1892, the Trout Farm Inn was located in Felton. It burned down on June 5,2016, the 2010 United States Census reported that Felton had a population of 4,057. The population density was 891.2 people per square mile, the racial makeup of Felton was 3,691 White,25 African American,29 Native American,69 Asian,11 Pacific Islander,60 from other races, and 172 from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 283 persons, the Census reported that 99. 4% of the population lived in households and 0. 6% lived in non-institutionalized group quarters. There were 154 unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 27 same-sex married couples or partnerships,474 households were made up of individuals and 130 had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.37, there were 988 families, the average family size was 2.89. The median age was 44.0 years, for every 100 females there were 101.1 males.
For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 99.5 males, there were 1,895 housing units at an average density of 416.3 per square mile, of which 69. 5% were owner-occupied and 30. 5% were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 2. 1%, the vacancy rate was 3. 0%. 72. 8% of the lived in owner-occupied housing units and 26. 6% lived in rental housing units
Natural monument
A natural monument is a natural or natural/cultural feature of outstanding or unique value because of its inherent rarity, representative of aesthetic qualities or cultural significance. They are generally quite small protected areas and often have high visitor value and this is a lower level of protection than level II and level I. The European Environment Agencys guidelines for selection of a natural monument are, the area should be large enough to protect the integrity of the feature and its immediately related surroundings
Sequoiadendron giganteum
The common use of the name sequoia generally refers to Sequoiadendron giganteum, which occurs naturally only in groves on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. The etymology of the name has been presumed—initially in The Yosemite Book by Josiah Whitney in 1868—to be in honor of Sequoyah. Giant sequoias are the worlds largest single trees and largest living thing by volume, Giant sequoias grow to an average height of 50–85 m and 6–8 m in diameter. Record trees have been measured to be 94.8 m in height, claims of 17 m diameter have been touted by taking an authors writing out of context, but the widest known at chest height is closer to 8.2 m. Between 2014 and 2016, specimens of coast redwood were found to have larger trunk diameters than all known giant sequoias, the oldest known giant sequoia based on ring count is 3,500 years old. Giant Sequoias are among the oldest living things on Earth, Sequoia bark is fibrous and may be 90 cm thick at the base of the columnar trunk.
It provides significant fire protection for the trees, the leaves are evergreen, awl-shaped, 3–6 millimetres long, and arranged spirally on the shoots. The seed is brown, 4–5 millimetres long and 1 millimetre broad, with a 1-millimetre wide. Some seeds are shed when the cone scales shrink during hot weather in late summer, the giant sequoia regenerates by seed. Young trees start to bear cones at the age of 12 years, Trees up to about 20 years old may produce stump sprouts subsequent to injury, but unlike coast redwoods, shoots do not form on the stumps of mature trees. Giant sequoias of all ages may sprout from their boles when branches are lost to fire or breakage, at any given time, a large tree may be expected to have about 11,000 cones. Cone production is greatest in the portion of the canopy. A mature giant sequoia has been estimated to disperse 300, 000–400,000 seeds per year, the winged seeds may be carried up to 180 metres from the parent tree. Lower branches die fairly readily from shading, but trees less than 100 years old retain most of their dead branches, trunks of mature trees in groves are generally free of branches to a height of 20–50 metres, but solitary trees will retain low branches.
Because of its size, the tree has been studied for its water pull, Sequoias supplement water from the soil with fog, taken up through air roots, at heights to where the root water cannot be pulled. The natural distribution of giant sequoias is restricted to an area of the western Sierra Nevada. They occur in scattered groves, with a total of 68 groves, nowhere does it grow in pure stands, although in a few small areas, stands do approach a pure condition. The northern two-thirds of its range, from the American River in Placer County southward to the Kings River, has only eight disjunct groves, the remaining southern groves are concentrated between the Kings River and the Deer Creek Grove in southern Tulare County
Henry Cowell
Henry Dixon Cowell was an American composer, music theorist, teacher and impresario. His experiments begun three decades ago in rhythm, in harmony, and in instrumental sonorities were considered by many to be wild, today they are the Bible of the young and still, to the conservatives, advanced. No other composer of our time has produced a body of works so radical and so normal, so penetrating, add to this massive production his long and influential career as a pedagogue, and Henry Cowells achievement becomes impressive indeed. There is no other quite like it, to be both fecund and right is given to few. After his parents divorce in 1903, he was raised by his mother, Clarissa Dixon, author of the early feminist novel Janet and his father, with whom he maintained contact, introduced him to the Irish music that would be a touchstone for Cowell throughout his career. While receiving no formal education, he began to compose in his mid-teens. By the summer of 1914, Cowell was writing truly individualistic works and that fall, the largely self-taught Cowell was admitted to the University of California, Berkeley, as a protégé of Charles Seeger.
There he studied harmony and other subjects under Seeger and Edward Griffith Stricklen, after two years at Berkeley, Cowell pursued further studies in New York where he encountered Leo Ornstein, the radically futurist composer-pianist. Still a teenager, Cowell wrote the piano piece Dynamic Motion and it requires the performer to use both forearms to play massive secundal chords and calls for keys to be held down without sounding to extend and intensify its dissonant cluster overtones. In years, Cowell would claim that the piece had been composed around 1912 and it was on one of these tours that in 1923, his friend Richard Buhlig introduced Cowell to young pianist Grete Sultan in Berlin. They worked closely together—an aspect vital to Grete Sultans personal and artistic development, Cowell made such an impression with his tone cluster technique that Béla Bartók requested his permission to adopt it. Cowells endeavors with string piano techniques were the inspiration for John Cages development of the prepared piano.
Even the canon in the first movement of the Romantic has different note-lengths for each voice, in 1919, Cowell had begun writing New Musical Resources, which would finally be published after extensive revision in 1930. Focusing on the variety of rhythmic and harmonic concepts he used in his compositions. Conlon Nancarrow, for instance, would refer to it as having the most influence of anything Ive ever read in music. Cowell wrote several compositions for the instrument, including an orchestrated concerto. Soon, the Rhythmicon would be forgotten, remaining so until the 1960s. A prolific composer of songs, Cowell returned in 1930–31 to Aeolian Harp, adapting it as the accompaniment to a setting of a poem by his father
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, is a public research university and one of 10 campuses in the University of California system. Located 75 miles south of San Francisco at the edge of the community of Santa Cruz. Founded in 1965, UC Santa Cruz began as a showcase for progressive, cross-disciplinary undergraduate education, innovative teaching methods and contemporary architecture. The residential college system, which consists of ten colleges, is intended to combine the student support of a small college with the resources of a major university. The Santa Cruz site was selected over a proposal to build the campus closer to the population center of San Jose. The formal design process of the Santa Cruz campus began in the late 1950s, construction had started by 1964, and the university was able to accommodate its first students in 1965. The campus was intended to be a showcase for contemporary architecture, progressive teaching methods, according to founding chancellor Dean McHenry, the purpose of the distributed college system was to combine the benefits of a major research university with the intimacy of a smaller college.
UC President Clark Kerr shared a passion with former Stanford roommate McHenry to build a university modeled as several Swarthmores in close proximity to each other, roads on campus were named after UC Regents who voted in favor of building the campus. Early student and faculty activism at UCSC pioneered an approach to environmentalism that greatly impacted the development of the surrounding area. The lowering of the age to 18 in 1971 led to the emergence of a powerful student-voting bloc. City voters in 2006 passed two measures calling on UCSC to pay for the impacts of campus growth, a Santa Cruz Superior Court judge invalidated the measures, ruling they were improperly put on the ballot. In 2008, the university, city and neighborhood organizations reached an agreement to set aside numerous lawsuits and allow the expansion to occur. UCSC agreed to local government scrutiny of its campus expansion plans, to provide housing for 67 percent of the additional students on campus. George Blumenthal, UCSCs 10th Chancellor, intends to mitigate growth constraints in Santa Cruz by developing off-campus sites in Silicon Valley.
The NASA Ames Research Center campus is planned to ultimately hold 2,000 UCSC students – about 10% of the universitys future student body as envisioned for 2020. In April 2010, UC Santa Cruz opened its new $35 million Digital Arts Research Center, the 2, 000-acre UCSC campus is located 75 miles south of San Francisco, in the Ben Lomond Mountain ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Elevation varies from 285 feet at the entrance to 1,195 feet at the northern boundary. The southern portion of the campus consists of a large, open meadow
Corylus cornuta
Corylus cornuta is a deciduous shrubby hazel found in most of North America, from southern Canada south to Georgia and California. It grows in dry woodlands and forest edges and can reach 4–8 metres tall with stems 10–25 centimetres thick with smooth gray bark, the leaves are rounded oval, coarsely double-toothed, 5–11 centimetres long and 3–8 centimetres broad, with hairy undersides. The flowers are catkins that form in the fall and pollinate in the following spring, Corylus cornuta is named from its fruit, which is a nut enclosed in a husk with a tubular extension 2–4 centimetres long that resembles a beak. Tiny filaments protrude from the husk and may stick into, and irritate, the spherical nuts, which are surrounded by a hard shell, are edible. There are two varieties, Corylus cornuta var. cornuta – Eastern Beaked Hazel, small shrub,4 to 6 m tall, beak longer,3 cm or more. Corylus cornuta var. californica – Western Beaked Hazel or California Hazelnut, large shrub,4 to 15 m tall, beak shorter, usually less than 3 cm.
The Concow tribe called this variety gōm’-he’’-ni, the seeds are dispersed by jays and rodents such as red squirrels and least chipmunks. Although C. cornuta is somewhat shade tolerant, it is common in open forests than denser ones
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Pinterest, Uber, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings.
The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849.
The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad
The steam engines date from the 1890s, and are some of the oldest and most authentically preserved narrow-gauge steam engines still providing regular passenger service in the United States. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers designated three engines at Roaring Camp and Big Trees Railroad as Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark #134 in 1988, Roaring Camp Railroads operations began in 1963 under the guidance of F. Norman Clark, who was the founder and owner. His purpose was to keep a tradition of constructing railroads and to bring the romance. In 1958, Clark found the engine Dixiana abandoned near a mine in the Appalachian Mountains. Dixiana was reconditioned and began service in 1963 on rails that had been shipped around Cape Horn in 1881. The railway route was laid out so that as few trees as possible would have to be cut on the 170 acres Clark acquired with a 99-year lease of the larger Big Trees Ranch. The Big Trees Ranch was bought in 1867 by San Francisco businessman Joseph Warren Welch to preserve the giant redwood trees from logging and it was the first property in the state acquired specifically for that purpose.
In 1930, the Welch family sold part of the property to Santa Cruz County, the first scheduled train trip was on April 6,1963 with 44 ticketed passengers. Clarks wife, Vice President of Operations assumed the ownership, two large trestles formed a corkscrew loop at Spring Canyon, but these were destroyed by a 1976 fire, the smoke from which could be seen from San Francisco. Within six months, a switchback was constructed to bypass the severed loop, the switchback has an estimated 9. 5% grade, making it the steepest passenger grade still in use. The length of the tracks in the switchback restricts the trains that may be operated to six cars or fewer. Special events are held to raise funds for repair and reconstruction of the trestles, in 2003, the first Day Out With Thomas special event was held. The event was the single largest in the 40-year history of Roaring Camp, on December 28,2015, a train collided with a stop block on part of the switchback. The railroad owns several locomotives in various states of repair, regular service is typically handled by the railroads two Shay locomotives, with occasional appearances by the Heisler.
0-4-2T Kahuku, the oldest locomotive on the roster, is used in service on special occasions. Due to its size, it is not capable of hauling trains up the mountain. Several of the diesels were sold in 2010 for economic reasons. Built in 1912, this engine was owned by the Alaculsy Lumber Company
Pinus ponderosa
It is the most widely distributed pine species in North America. It grows in various forms from British Columbia southward and eastward through 16 western U. S. states and has been successfully introduced in temperate regions of Europe. It was first documented into modern science in 1826 in eastern Washington near present-day Spokane, on that occasion, David Douglas misidentified it as Pinus resinosa. In 1829, Douglas concluded that he had a new pine among his specimens, in 1836, it was formally named and described by Charles Lawson, a Scottish nurseryman. It is the state tree of Montana. Pinus ponderosa is a large pine tree. The bark helps to distinguish it from other species, mature to over-mature individuals have yellow to orange-red bark in broad to very broad plates with black crevices. Younger trees have blackish-brown bark, referred to as blackjacks by early loggers, ponderosa pines five subspecies, as classified by some botanists, can be identified by their characteristically bright, green needles.
The Pacific subspecies has the longest—19.8 cm or 7.8 in—and most flexible needles in fascicles of three. The Columbia ponderosa pine has long—12. 0–20.5 cm or 4. 7–8.1 in—and relatively flexible needles in fascicles of three. The Rocky Mountains subspecies has shorter—9. 2–14.4 cm or 3. 6–5.7 in—and stout needles growing in scopulate fascicles of two or three. The southwestern subspecies has 11. 2–19.8 cm or 4. 4–7.8 in, needles are widest and fewest for the species. Sources differ on the scent of P. ponderosa, but it is more or less of turpentine, some state that it has no distinctive scent. The National Register of Big Trees lists a ponderosa pine that is 235 ft tall and 324 in in circumference, in January 2011, a Pacific ponderosa pine in the Rogue River–Siskiyou National Forest in Oregon was measured with a laser to be 268.35 ft high. The measurement was performed by Michael Taylor and Mario Vaden, a professional arborist from Oregon, the tree was climbed on October 13,2011, by Ascending The Giants and directly measured with tape-line at 268.29 ft high.
This is the second tallest known pine after the sugar pine and this species is grown as an ornamental plant in parks and large gardens. The trees were burned and blown over. Pinus ponderosa is a dominant tree in the Kuchler plant association, like most western pines, the ponderosa generally is associated with mountainous topography
Chaparral
Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U. S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico. Chaparral covers 5 percent of the state of California, and associated Mediterranean shrubland an additional 3.5 percent, the name comes from the Spanish word for scrub oak, chaparro. In its natural state, chaparral is characterized by infrequent fires, mature chaparral is characterized by nearly impenetrable, dense thickets. They grow as woody shrubs with hard and small leaves, are non-leaf-dropping, after the first rains following a fire, the landscape is dominated by soft-leaved non-woody annual plants, known as fire followers, which die back with the summer dry period. According to the California Academy of Sciences, Mediterranean shrubland contains more than 20 percent of the plant diversity. The word chaparral is a word from Spanish chaparro, meaning both small and dwarf evergreen oak, which itself comes from the Basque word txapar, with exactly the same meaning.
In Central and Southern California chaparral forms a dominant habitat, the following is a short list of birds which are an integral part of the cismontane chaparral ecosystems. Transmontane chaparral features xeric desert climate, not Mediterranean climate habitats, Desert chaparral is a regional ecosystem subset of the deserts and xeric shrublands biome, with some plant species from the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion. Unlike cismontane chaparral, which forms dense, impenetrable stands of plants, desert chaparral is open, individual shrubs can reach up to 10 feet in height. Transmontane chaparral or desert chaparral is found on the slopes of major mountain range systems on the western sides of the deserts of California. It is distinguished from the cismontane chaparral found on the side of the mountains. Naturally, desert chaparral experiences less rainfall than cismontane chaparral. Plants in this community are characterized by small, hard evergreen leaves, Desert chaparral grows above Californias desert cactus scrub plant community and below the pinyon-juniper woodland.
It is further distinguished from the deciduous sub-alpine scrub above the pinyon-juniper woodlands on the side of the Peninsular ranges. Transmontane chaparral typically grows on the northern slopes of the southern Transverse Ranges. It can be found in higher-elevation sky islands in the interior of the deserts, there is overlap of animals with those of the adjacent desert and pinyon-juniper communities. Canis latrans, coyotes Lynx rufus, bobcats Neotoma sp, the Chaparral area receives about 38–100 cm of precipitation a year. This makes the chaparral most vulnerable to fire in the late summer, the chaparral ecosystem as a whole is adapted to be able to recover from infrequent wildfires, chaparral regions are known culturally and historically for their impressive fires
Dwarf forest
Dwarf forest, elfin forest, or pygmy forest is a rare ecosystem featuring miniature trees, inhabited by small species of fauna such as rodents and lizards. They are usually located at high elevations, under conditions of sufficient air humidity, there are two main dwarf forest ecosystem types, involving different species and environmental characteristics, coastal temperate and montane tropical regions. Temperate coastal dwarf forest is common for parts of Southern California, montane tropical forests are found across tropical highlands of Central America, northern South America and Southeast Asia. There are other isolated examples of dwarf forests scattered across the world, Elfin forests of California are the primary example of coastal temperate dwarf forests. They are expansive, and cover most of the mountains in the half of California, extending into Mexico, Nevada. Other expanses of elfin forest are found throughout the state, in the northern, in northern California, Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park is home to an elfin forest with Mendocino cypress, and Sargents cypress, which is partially within a section of the Zayante Sandhill Area.
On the Central Coast of California, on the shore of Morro Bay. The area is approximately 90 acres and it derives the “elfin forest” title from the short California live oaks, which range in height from 4 –20 feet, compared to the typical 30–80 feet. This region contains the federally endangered Morro shoulderband snail, fire occurs at low-moderate frequency with high severity. Many plants have adapted to this by having serotinous seeds that open to germinate only under high heat, because of this, they are often the first to colonize a new area. Diminutive plants commonly found in Californian elfin forests include Portulacaceae such as Mount Hood pussypaws and Alkali heath and shrubs, such as chamise, ceanothus, sumac and scrub-oak rarely grow more than 20 ft tall in these communities. Invertebrates include the common scorpion, burrowing scorpion, and various species of spider, the Californian climate usually exhibits wet winters and dry summers. Variation in these patterns can cause devastating damage to plant communities.
Plants found in forests have adapted to grow during winter months. Plant communities deal with low, seasonal rainfall by relying on fog interception, formation of coastal elfin forests in northern California and Oregon, began with a series of marine terraces. A dune being pushed away from the coast by fluctuating sea levels solidified and slid under the one before it. Pioneer plant communities colonized and took over the young terrace, part of this soil profile includes an underlying clay or iron hardpan. Each terrace is relatively level and many are footed by paleo-dunes, drainage is poor at best on these stairs and plants sit in a bath of their own tannins and acids for much of the wet season
Visitor center
A visitor center or centre, visitor information center, tourist information center, is a physical location that provides tourist information to the visitors who tour the place or area locally. Often a film or other media display is used, if the site has permit requirements or guided tours, the visitor center is often the place where these are coordinated. A tourist information center, providing visitors to a location with information on the attractions, maps. Often, these centers are operated at the airport or other port of entry, often a visitor center is called simply an information center. A corporate visitor center, provides visitors with an easily accessible window into the corporation, Visitor centers used to provide fairly basic information about the place, corporation or event they are celebrating, acting more as the entry way to a place. The role of the center has been rapidly evolving over the past 10 years to become more of an experience. Many have become destinations and experiences in their own right, other TICs are run by local authorities or through private organisations such as local shops in association with BTA.
In England, VisitEngland promotes domestic tourism, in Wales, the Welsh Government supports TICs through Visit Wales. In Scotland, the Scottish Government supports VisitScotland, the official tourist organisation of Scotland, in Poland there are special offices and tables giving free information about tourist attractions. These information centers are operated by the state they are located in, the first example opened on 4 May 1935, next to US12 in New Buffalo, near the Indiana state line. In Ontario, there are 11 Ontario Travel Information Centres located along 400-series highways and it provides assistance on various procedures or where tourists have problems of various kinds. Iperú receives complaints and suggestions for destinations and tourism companies operating in Peru, iperú, Tourist Information and Assistance has a nationwide network represented online by the Peru. The official tourist organization or national tourist board of Peru is PromPerú, in Australia, most visitor centres are local or state government-run, or in some cases as an association of tourism operators on behalf of the government, usually managed by a board or executive.
Those that comply with an accreditation programme use the italic i as pictured above. Heritage center Heritage interpretation Interpretation center Nature center United States Capitol Visitor Center Communicating effectively with visitors -16 tips for visitor centers
