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

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The river also hosts the southernmost major steelhead trout run in North America. Native steelhead return annually from the ocean to spawn. Strict rules protect this population, as the run dwindled to just a handful of fish in the early 1990s. As of 2002, the Carmel River averaged 123 juvenile steelhead per hundred feet of stream—numbers reflective of well-stocked streams, though this group and other California steelhead populations remain threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. Contact the California Department of Fish & Game for current fishing regulations: (831) 649-2870.

Dramatically different rock formations anchor either end of the beach. On the north end, the trail passes large granitic outcrops laced with veins of blocky white crystals—excellent examples of Hobnail granite. Over the past 65 million years, the Pacific plate carried these ancient rocks hundreds of miles north from their origin in Mexico. In contrast, the south end features a narrow ridge of russet and tan conglomerate, composed of well-cemented stream sediments from a flood plain that was later supplanted by the Santa Lucia Range.