Arastradero Preserve, officially known as Enid W. Pearson–Arastradero Preserve, is a

nature preserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or o ...

that protects most of the

Arastradero Creek Arastradero Creek is a mainly seasonal U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed August 21, 2011 generally north by northeastward-flowing stream originating in the Palo Alto footh ...

watershed, including its

ephemeral Ephemerality (from the Greek word , meaning 'lasting only one day') is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Academically, the term ephemeral constitutionally describes a diverse assortment of things and experiences, fr ...

Mayfly Creek tributary. It also includes the upper reach of the Felt Creek tributary to

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

's Felt Reservoir. The preserve is owned and operated by the City of

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

. The main parking lot hosts an interpretive center and is located at 1530 Arastradero Road
37°23'13" N, 122°10'29" W
.

Description

Arastradero Preserve consists of rolling

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...

grassland hills and

evergreen forest An evergreen forest is a forest made up of evergreen trees. They occur across a wide range of climatic zones, and include trees such as conifers and holly in cold climates, eucalyptus, Live oak, acacias, magnolia, and banksia in more temperate zone ...

s; the preserve varies in elevation from in the northeast to in the southwest. There are four gates (labeled A, B, C, and D) into the preserve, though public parking is available only at Gate A on the North side. Gate D connects to

Foothills Park Foothills Park is a park and nature preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, United States, within the city of Palo Alto. From 1969 until 2020, only residents or city employees of Palo Alto and their guests had lawful access to it, a ...

as part of the Bay-to-Ridge Trail. The park is also accessible from a pedestrian footpath that leads to the residential area on the street Paseo del Roble. The east portion of the preserve protects

, which flows into

Matadero Creek Matadero Creek is a stream originating in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The creek flows in a northeasterly direction for until it enters the Palo Alto Flood Basin, where it joins Ado ...

at the junction of Arastradero Road and Page Mill Road. Near the East side about a quarter mile south of the entrance is Arastradero Lake, and further south up into the preserve is Sobey Pond. The lake is also about 0.2 miles from the Paseo del Roble entrance. The southwest portion of the preserve protects seasonal Felt Creek, which runs beneath Arastradero Road and is diverted to Felt Lake. In wet years, Felt Lake releases flows which reach

Los Trancos Creek Los Trancos Creek (meaning "barriers" or "cattle guards" from the Spanish "Las Trancas") is a stream, creek that flows northerly from Monte Bello Ridge on the northeast slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains to its confluence with San Francisquito Creek ...

, a

San Francisquito Creek San Francisquito Creek (Spanish for "Little San Francisco" - the "little" referring to size of the settlement compared to Mission San Francisco de Asís) is a creek that flows into southwest San Francisco Bay in California, United States. Histo ...

tributary.

Ecology

The preserve contains an abundance of wildlife, including

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

bobcats The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUC ...

coyotes The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecologica ...

snake Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Ma ...

s, and many species of

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

. The preserve and the surrounding area are habitats for the California puma (''Puma concolor'' is also locally known as mountain lion). There are regular sightings of puma and coyotes in the areas, and people hiking with

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Do ...

s or small children should be cautious. From 2016 through 2020, a pair of

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...

s (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') has nested in a large

eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as euca ...

tree near Felt Lake and the preserve.

Trails

The Pearson–Arastradero Preserve has of trails for

hiking Hiking is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century.AMATO, JOSEPH A. "Mind over Foot: Romantic Walking and Rambling." In ''On Foot: A Histor ...

biking Cycling, also, when on a two-wheeled bicycle, called bicycling or biking, is the use of cycles for transport, recreation, exercise or sport. People engaged in cycling are referred to as "cyclists", "bicyclists", or "bikers". Apart from two ...

and

horseback riding Equestrianism (from Latin , , , 'horseman', 'horse'), commonly known as horse riding (Commonwealth English) or horseback riding (American English), includes the disciplines of riding, driving, and vaulting. This broad description includes the ...

. While many of the trails are open year-round, some trails are designated as "seasonal" and are closed at the

trailhead A trailhead is the point at which a trail begins, where the trail is often intended for hiking, biking, horseback riding, or off-road vehicles. Modern trailheads often contain rest rooms, maps, sign posts and distribution centers for information ...

temporarily after heavy

rain Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water f ...

. The trails at Arastradero Preserve include Acorn, Arastradeo Creek, Bay Laurel, Bowl Loop, Juan Bautista de Anza, Meadowlark, Ohlone, Paseo del Roble, Portola Pastures, Redtail Loop, Wild Rye, Woodland Star, and Woodrat.

Restoration and stewardship activities

Grassroots Ecology
a local environmental nonprofit, has run a collaborative stewardship program on the preserve in cooperation with the City of Palo Alto since 1997. Volunteers and Grassroots Ecology staff work to improve the Preserve by eliminating invasive weeds such as non-native thistles, planting native species such as blue wild rye and engaging local youth and community members.

Surroundings and history

Portions of Arastradero Preserve border

(on the South side), the Palo Alto Golf Course (on the East side), open land owned by Stanford University (to the North), and one of the campuses of Palo Alto University (to the West). From the hills on the North Side, one can see Felt Lake which is otherwise difficult to see from public lands except Vista Hill in Foothills Park. Because most of the golf course in on a flat mesa at a higher elevation than the preserve, the golf course is largely invisible from the preserve. There remains a small piece of private property adjacent to Arastradero Road surrounded on all sides by the preserve which currently has no structures. There had been a private home deep within the preserve until the late 1990s which has now been torn down. In 2006 a small visitor's center was erected near the parking lot entrance which contains a miniature scale model of the park and exhibits explaining the ecology, flora, and fauna of the region.

References

External links

Arastradero page on Acterra siteA map of the preserve
{{coord, 37, 23, 13, N, 122, 10, 29, W, source:enwiki-plaintext-parser_region:US-CA_type:landmark, display=title Nature reserves in California Palo Alto, California Protected areas of Santa Clara County, California