We hope you will join us for our first program of the season, a Sitka Spruce tour at the Circle Creek Habitat Reserve on Saturday April 25.
No other tree defines the Pacific Coast more than the Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis). Found almost exclusively in coastal bioregions from Alaska to Northern California, this endemic tree dominates the mixed forests in the coastal marine zone. Although often revered for its size, with some trees being as much as 15 feet in diameter and over 200 feet tall, its real virtue is its capacity to respond and adapt to a key coastal event, wind. The diverse ways that spruce respond to wind not only keeps them living but also produces the special unique pockets, nooks, and crannies that become sites for forest vegetation and wildlife habitat. Living to over 700 hundred years, spruce often have unusual trunk and root features because of the frequency that they germinate on the tops of stumps and downed logs. Over time the root systems reach the ground and the nurse logs and stumps decay away, leaving the Spruce standing on stilts.
The Sitka Spruce forest at Circle Creek is a living museum of all of the most amazing features of spruce trees. Two tours will be offered, one at 9:00 am and one at 2:00 pm. Each hike will last about 2 hours, and waterproof foot gear is suggested. To attend, meet at the North Coast Land Conservancy's Circle Creek Conservation Center two miles south of Seaside at 32825 Rippet Road [map/directions]. Please dress for the weather. Waterproof boots are probably a good idea, or at least sturdy hiking boots.
The Spruce Tour is the first event of the season for our Gateway to Discovery program series. To see what else is coming up, visit www.nclctrust.org.
Thanks for your interest. See you outside!
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