(Please read note at bottom about eventual plans for this site.)

Here are the pictures that I took at Ring Mountain Preserve in Marin County, last weekend, where Joe and I went in search of the Tiburon Mariposa Lily. We were a bit late, and found no lilies, but it was beautiful nonetheless.

From a higher part of the trail, looking toward the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge . . . This part wasn't too hard for me to get to, partially because the Preserve is developed right up to its edges, so steep residential streets go quite a long way up the hill to trailheads.

Toward the southeast; you can't quite see Oakland across the bay in the distance.

Again toward Richmond, with a lovely serpentine outcropping. I couldn't resist capturing the shadows of cumulus on the water.

And again to the southeast, with more chunky serpentine everywhere. That's Joe in front of the bushes, putting away his tripod.

Near the beginning of my favorite trail is a small marshy area with a spring. Often, marshes in serpentine soil can have a very different set of plants than those elsewhere; I haven't really had a good botanical look at this one.

SWOON -- fabulous greenish big pretty serpentine chunks.

You can see how serpentine soils can inhibit growth, even here, where the plants have adapted to it. (It's quite obvious on I-280 in San Mateo County just north of Highway 92's interchange. Keep your eyes on the road cuts on the right, as the big very-light-blue areas without plants scattered here and there are patches of serpentine soil.

Trail leading off toward the south. You can just see San Francisco's skyscrapers peeking over the hill beyond.

Ring Mountain is one of the places that I described to Joe, last week, as "really really important places." He asked me to list others, and I had a hard time, though I know them when I see them. (In fact, I do intend to make a list, and to make a page like this -- but designed better -- for each of them.)

Ring Mountain has lots and lots of serpentine, both big boulders and lots of serpentine soil. It's the only place in the world where the Tiburon Mariposa Lily grows. Many plants can grow in serpentine soil and no other soil, which is good, because many plants can't grow in serpentine at all. It contains asbestos, selenium, and other nasties. Housing developers and individuals in Corte Madera were building up Ring Mountain as fast as they could. Finally, some number of years ago, The Nature Conservancy snatched it up, and has since transferred it to the Marin Open Space District.

Links:

College of Marin's "To See a World" page on Ring Mountain -- this is my favorite link

Lovely description, excellent photos

Bay Area Hiker's Ring Mountain page

I've only done web sites with notepad, before, but for the geographile site, I wanted to do something a little fancier than I can manage with notepad, as well as use CSS, and in general, do something different.

But I open Dreamweaver and go *eep*. I used Dreamweaver awhile ago, to edit documents for the web at Charitableway.com (the defunct automated donation place I used to work) but I didn't really start things or plan things. And, frankly, I'm not a good web designer. So here I am, using dreamweaver as a text editor because it's easier than notepad, and . . . well, maybe I'll figure something out.

I have big hopes for Geographile.com. I want to create a general "why I love it" geography site, not about geography in general, but about the love of place, getting to know places, but especially, sharing the places I love best, sharing their history and geography and associations and whatever is wonderful about those places. I'll start with places I love best, especially Northern California, but eventually expanding nationwide or farther if I can get folks to share (with attribution) about their favorite places. (On the off chance it gets big, I'll probably try to support it with donations and merchant affiliations.)

I'm stuck on design, though. I'm not a good designer or content organizer. If you know of any well designed, similar or related sites, or if you have any ideas, feel free to let me know. I could use them. I'd ask one of my good-friend web designers for professional help but that's way outside my budget, so for now, I'll do what I can.