Wildcat Canyon Regional Park
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Wildcat Canyon Regional Park is a 2,428 acre East Bay Regional Parks District park located in Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. It comprises a portion of its namesake Wildcat Canyon.
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[edit] Alvarado Park
Alavarado Park is the northernmost portion of Wildcat Canyon and is in itself a National Historic Place.
[edit] Features
One trail of note is Nimitz Way, a four mile long paved trail (named after Admiral Chester W. Nimitz) that begins at Inspiration Point on the eastern edge of Tilden Park and heads north along the ridge of the hills, crossing into Wildcat Canyon Regional Park about two miles in and ending at a peak above El Sobrante. Nimitz Way is very popular with hikers, runners and bicyclists because it is relatively easy (paved, not very steep) and you have excellent views of the San Francisco Bay to the west and EBMUD’s San Pablo & Briones Reservoirs and Mt. Diablo to the east. Unknown to most of the folks who travel this trail, the two mile section that is in Wildcat Canyon Regional Park was a Nike missile base which was decommissioned in the 1970s. Today there are few signs of the missile silos and military housing that used to populate these hills.
Leading uphill from the north entrance is a broad paved roadway. As one ascends, it soon becomes evident why the road and the housing subdivision it was supposed to lead to was abandoned. Landslides bury portions of the road and in other places the asphalt has cracked and begun to slide downhill.
Wildcat has an abundance of wildlife both flora and fauna. There are Coast Live Oak, Bay Laurel, Big leaf Maple, Madrone, alder, willow, creekdogwood, and Eucalpytus forests. There are humid chaparrals made up of coyote brush, poison oak, elderberry, snowberry, bracken fern, and blackberry bushes. There are some native grasses but nonnative species like rye, barley, and oat dominante, many kinds of native flowers are present. With regards to animal life there are foxes, raccoons, skunks, opussums, deer, California ground squirrels often thought to be gophers in addition to voles present. Reptilian life includes gopher snakes, king snakes, western racers, garter snakes, rubber boas, ringneck snakes. In the skies red-tailed hawks, American kestrels, sharp shinned hawks, cooper's hawks, crows, and turkey vultures fly and also great horned owls and many songbirds.[1]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Wildcat Canyon Regional Park at the East Bay Regional Parks District website
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