A Beautiful, Harmful Plant (Whale Peak Loop, part 2)

The fun thing about hiking along the craggy ocean bluffs on California's Central Coast is that every bend you round, nay even every 50' in a straight line you walk, a new perspective comes into view and it's beautiful. That's why this "Whale Peak Loop" trail we were hiking Saturday (see part 1 blog) starts out being about anything but Whale Peak itself. Oh, we'll get there eventually. It's just there's so much beauty down at the coast to spend time walking in.



Part of what makes these scenes beautiful is the brilliant red and green ground cover. It's also a bit surprising. I don't remember seeing so many plants growing on these bluffs on past trips. Without it you'd see a lot more bare rock. Craggy, bare rock is beautiful in its own way, too. I know I like it. Its beauty is subtle, though, and hard to capture with photographs.

So, yay for plants, right? Better pictures and better for the environment, right? Uh, not so much.



The plant that's growing all over the cliffs in this area is named ice plant, Latin name carpobrotus edulis. It's a succulent that grows thick, triangular leaves. You can see them in the enlargement pic above. (It's a crop at 100% from the original of the pic I shared above it. It's from near the edge of the frame with a super-wide angle lens so image quality is not the best.) 

Ice plant's red and green leaves create striking colors. And it makes flowers, too. It wasn't flowering during this visit, though on previous visits to California's Central Coast we've seen it flowering in brilliant yellow, pink, and magenta.

So what's not to like? Well, ice plant is a nonnative species from South Africa. It was planted in California starting about 100 years ago to help control erosion along rail and road embankments. It did that job well and it really thrives in the Central Coast environment. And that's where the problem lies. It thrives so much it has choked out many other species of plants.

One plant or another, what's the difference? you might ask. Well, some of those plants are needed by native animal species for food or nests. By killing off those plants, ice plant is causing these animals to die off. Ice plant also spreads easily over cliffs and dunes. The bare rock and sand are important habitat for other animals. With loss of habitat they're dying off, too. Various state and local groups are working to remove areas of ice plant and seeing rapid return of native plants and animals. Sometimes it's Kill a plant, save an animal.

Keep reading! Hiking Whale Peak Loop, part 3

Hiking the Whale Peak Loop, part 3: Whale Peak

I know, I know, this is my third blog about hiking the Whale Peak Loop at Garrapata State Park in California last weekend (previous blogs: first, second) and I haven't even shared a picture of Whale Peak. Okay, here it is:



Now do you see why I have my back turned to it for most of the pictures I took? Yeah, especially when looking the other way shows scenes like this:



That's a view looking south across the Central Coast's rugged cliffs, BTW.

At this point we're 3/4 of the way around the loop. The main trail tracks back along Highway 1. That's easily the least scenic part of the loop, though it is where a spur trail forks off to the top of Whale Peak. The views from the top are much more rewarding than looking at Whale Peak from the sides.



Whale Peak is a double-peak hill, as you can see in the photo above. Off in the distance to the right is Rocky Ridge. You can see an obvious trail ascending that ridge. That's (part of) the one that's closed right now due to fire damage. When I looked at it through a telephoto lens I could see the trail was pretty badly eroded. Note, it's not the fire that erodes trails. The fire burns the brush that anchors the soil and rocks to the hillside and also scalds the ground so that it can't absorb water well. Then when rains come they course straight down the hillsides, wiping out man made features like trails.

I've noticed that when I'm hiking and enjoying far-off views I sometimes forget to check for beauty at my feet. Being atop Whale Peak was no exception.



The views straight down the side of the mountain, to the craggy coastline below, are worth it. It's another perspective on the ever-enchanting landscape where we spent the last hour+.

My fallback wide angle lens

Last week I noted that I've been without my super-wide angle lens since dropping and breaking it 2 months ago. Yet in the series of blogs I just posted about our trip to Garrapata State Park last weekend I shot some of the photos with a super-wide lens. Did the repair shop fix it lightning fast? Did I give in and spend $1,000 on a new one? Neither. It turns out I already had another super-wide lens on the bench waiting to get back in the game.



I bought this lens, a Zeiss 12mm f/2.8 prime, in about April 2014. I know the date to within a month plus or minus, in fact, because I can bracket it with my blog. I bought my first Fuji X series camera, an X-A1 in March 2014. I was already using it by June on a hike along the PCT near Mt. Shasta. As I've mentioned before (though not in these words until now) my blog is like a data backup of my brain. 😂

"Why buy two super-wide lenses," you might ask, "Particularly when these lenses are not inexpensive?"

Well, I bought this lens almost immediately after buying that first Fuji camera because I knew having a super-wide was critical to my photographic style. At the time there were only two choices in the category, Fuji's own 14mm prime and this Zeiss lens. I chose the Zeiss lens because it was wider and because of the quality associated with the name (though the Fuji 14mm was no slouch). In the 9 years since then several more super-wide lenses have come to market, including a Fuji 10-24mm f/4.0 zoom lens not too long after the Zeiss 12mm appeared. Tests showed Fuji's super-wide zoom had great image quality so I bought one. It quickly became my main workhorse lens. The Zeiss got shelved.

"Okay, but why keep two super-wide lenses?" you might ask.

Many photographers sell their older lenses when replacing them so they can plow more money into buying new lenses or other gear. Countless times over the past several years I've kicked myself for not doing so. I probably could have gotten $400, maybe even more, selling this lens. In most respects it would've been the right thing to do. Ultimately I didn't because I was lazy. I didn't want to deal with the vagaries of selling an item at that price via eBay, craigslist, etc.

Now I'm glad I've kept this old lens all this time, because I can pull it off the bench and send it into the game. It still works great, shooting pictures probably as good as new. And while it lacks the versatility of the Fuji's 10-24mm zoom range its 12mm focal length fills an important gap in the rest of my lens collection.



One thing I've appreciated anew about using this old lens again is how compact it is. The first picture in this blog shows the lens with the sun shade attached, making it look way bigger and bulkier than it actually is. The picture immediately above shows how small it is with the hood detached. It's nice to have a small(ish) lens in my bag right now since "the brick" I bought earlier this year takes up so much space... and weight.

But still, I'll be glad when I get my 10-24mm super-wide zoom back.