Wednesday, April 17. (And Friday, April 19. I've interleaved first-day "entering" and last-day "exiting" pictures.) Alder Camp. It's next to Alder Creek and has three sites. The area is under lovely large trees: the big bay here, plus oaks, Ponderosa pines, sycamores, and the eponymous alders.

An old sign marks the trail.

The trail crosses Alder Creek about 1/2 mile in from camp. This isn't the crossing itself but it's like this: an easy rock hop.

Ribes sanguinieum (red-flowering currant) by the crossing. This guy was huge, 15-20 feet high, very open, and almost woven into the understory.

Lots of poison oak on the slope south from the Alder Creek crossing (up on the 17th, down on the 19th). That opening with the single stem wandering across *is* the trail.

The wilderness boundary. The trees framing the sign are Douglas firs. There aren't *that* many of these otherwise-common trees this far south.

Once well above the creek, there's a hillside/hilltop stretch through grass and short sections of woodland. Here, looking back across the Alder Creek valley.

Castilleja affinis (Indian paintbrush). Not a lot of bloom up here but these were showy. I'm fairly sure on the species identification but can't be 100% so without a view of the leaves.

Arctostaphylos sp. (manzanita). These were mostly in fruit, but there were a few residual blooms.

Another sense of what these high meadows could look like, this one near the divide where upland walk gives way to the steep descent toward Villa Creek.

Over into the Villa Creek drainage now: the view up the valley toward the top of the Coast Ridge. The brown trees at the right. SOD is hitting hard. The long descent was mostly open with much on slumping, uneven trail. Sometimes the trail dipped under brush or trees.

Ribes menziesii (canyon gooseberry).

Mirabilis laevis (California four oclock). Coming in on the 17th these were just opening at 4:30 PM. They must not be observing daylight savings time. But at 9:20 AM on the 19th -- here -- they were all out.

Hesperoyucca whipplei (Our Lord's Candle). I saw just a few out on the whole trip.

The Villa Creek camp turnoff. On the 17th, I dropped to this camp, went ahead to Cruikshank camp to see what it looked like, and then returned the 1/2 mile to the better Villa Creek Camp. (And please note William Cruikshank wrote his name with one "c".)

Thursday, April 18. Villa Creek Camp. (The next group mixes camp pictures from various days.)

A little rill dribbled down over some rocks and logs right next to camp.

The more useful water source was 100 feet up the trail.

I was not alone on Wednesday night / Thursday morning. I didn't interact much: they came in late, were still in the tent when I left for today's dayhike, and were gone when I returned at the end of the day. Young couple with a quiet, laid-back dog. A bit of dead tan oak at the left.

Rubus parviflorus (western thimbleberry) just to the right of those folks camp, taken before they came.

Maianthemum racemosum (false Solomon's seal) on the shady north-facing slope up from Villa Creek as I begin Wednesday's dayhike.

Dudleya lanceolata (lance-leaf live-forever). I'd like to see a flower to be really sure on the species, but those long leaves do suggest lanceolata.

Upper Cruikshank Camp. Nicely functional, but the Villa Creek camp is prettier.

Lupinus nanus (sky lupine). There was a nice field of these just above Cruikshank Camp. Those spots help the identification but the leaves (not shown here) fit too.