BRT Insights - WW Kayaking & Hiking: January 2012

Monday, January 30, 2012

Cache Creek Natural Area, Frogpond Trail, Yolo County, California

Meeting at Lorenzo's Market in Winters, CA

JimH, OliverH, Royce & I decided to hike the Frog Pond Trail at Cache Creek Natural Area. We met at Lorenzo's Town and Country Market where we stocked up on deli sandwiches, drinks and some Blazing Hot flavor Yolo Land & Cattle beef jerky.

Frogpond Trail - Road map, topographic map, satellite map and pdf map.

• PDF map: Cache Creek Natural Area South Zone Map blm.gov.
• Map book: California Maps - Atlas & Gazetteer by Delorme, 2008.

• Online map user instructions. Click and drag to reposition this interactive map.
• The tool on the left zooms in and out. Point on the red markers to see the names.
• Map=roads. Satellite=satellite map. Terrain=3D shaded topo map. Topo=topographic map.
• Full-Screen online map - Cache Creek Natural Area.

Coordinates - landmark (marker).
N 38.90892 W 122.30998 - Cache Creek Canyon Regional Park Lower Site. (A)
N 38.90991 W 122.30854 - Low Water Bridge. (B) (elevation 550 ft.)
N 38.90653 W 122.30989 - Fiske Creek Bridge. (C)
N 38.90685 W 122.31093 - Barn. (D)
N 38.90005 W 122.31231 - Frogpond trailhead. (E)
N 38.91644 W 122.32826 - Frogpond Reservoir. (F) (elevation 1130 ft.)
N 38.92039 W 122.30390 - Glascock Mountain on Cortina Ridge. (G)
N 38.89269 W 122.29069 - Fiske Peak on Blue Ridge. (H)

Hiking the Frog Pond Trail

Then we drove up to Cache Creek Canyon Regional Park Lower Site which is the parking spot for Frog Pond Trail hikers. We hiked the Low Water Bridge over Cache Creek (which was flowing at 40 cfs). During rainy periods be sure to check the flow in Cache Creek before hiking. When the flow occasionally rises into the thousands of cfs those high flows run over the top of the Low Water Bridge and hiking access is prevented. We continued hiking on County Road 40 over the Fiske Creek bridge to the barn. At the barn there is a sign for the Frogpond Trail, but we could not find any hiking trail that began there. Farther down the road there is another Frog Pond Trail sign which connected to the trail. The Frogpond Trail goes through groves of grey pine, oaks and chemise. Along the way there are great views of Glascock Mountain, Cortina Ridge, Fiske Peak, Blue Ridge and the Cache Creek canyon.

Doubleclick on the photos to see the large size image - use the back button to return.

Cache Creek Natural Area, Frogpond Reservoir and Cortina Ridge

• Frogpond Reservoir and Cortina Ridge, Cache Creek Natural Area.

• Blue Ridge, Cache Creek Natural Area.

We had lunch on the earthen dam at Frogpond Reservoir. The Blazing Hot beef jerky had a slow developing hot flavor with a nice long after-burn. Mandarin oranges from Lynne&Richard made a nice dessert.

Royce lives by the Theodore Roosevelt slogan "speak softly and carry a big stick." He spent the entire day proudly carrying his big stick and periodically trying to get one of us to throw it for him to fetch. I finally figured out how to get some good photographs of Royce. If I turn on the camera before throwing the stick, then I have just enough time to get one quick photo before Royce races by with the stick.