Читать книгу Hiking & Backpacking Big Sur. Your complete guide to the trails of Big Sur, Ventana Wilderness, and Silver Peak Wilderness онлайн

101 страница из 112

Along the northwest fork, the trail offers views into Headland Cove, where with any luck you’ll see all three species of resident marine mammals: California sea lions, sea otters, and harbor seals. If thick summer fog obscures your view, listen for the boisterous barking of sea lions from nearshore rocks.

Strolling past Headland Cove, you soon enter the grove, one of only two naturally growing stands of Monterey cypress in the world (the other grove is at Cypress Point on the north end of Carmel Bay). In the colder, wetter climate of the Pleistocene epoch some 15,000 years ago, these wind-sculpted trees extended over a much wider range. As the climate slowly turned hotter and drier, the cypress trees withdrew to the cool, fog-shrouded coast. Closely inspect the branches and buttressed trunks to spot a deep orange velvety encrustation. This plush substance is lichen that coexists with the tree, using its branches merely as a roost rather than obtaining nourishment at the tree’s expense.