Featured Activity: Flat Landers Hike February 5, 2012

This is a fun one…we start at the Tied House Brewery in Mountain View for a carpool shuttle up to Palo Alto's Byxbee Park trailhead and then start hiking the Baylands Trail through the absolutely beautiful undisturbed salt marshland along the bay, past Shoreline and Moffet Field. On this hike we will see freshwater impoundments, salt ponds, drainage channels, and active and retired landfills. It is one of the best places in the Bay Area for bird-watching. The ponds, sloughs and levees are covered with huge flocks of water birds. Egrets and herons nest in the vegetation along the sloughs and channels and wade in the marshes here. Flotillas of giant pelicans cruise the ponds for food. The upland hills are homes for burrowing owls, songbirds, and raptors. There are miles of uncrowded levee trails around the ponds, sloughs, and over the landfills. The landfill hills provide panoramic views of the South Bay and Silicon Valley. We will finally end in the city streets of Mountain View concluding at the Tied House Brewery where we will have a bit of food and tip a beer and carpool back to the shuttle cars. We will also plan our hikes for the Spring. Always a lively event. Join us. It is truly a flatlanders hike…possibly 200 feet elevation.