Much of the Oakland Hills, including the area of Joaquin Miller Park was extensively logged of its old growth redwood forest between the years of approximately 1850 and 1860. In 1886, the writer and poet Joaquin Miller built a cabin (named “The Hights”) in the location of the present day park. Joaquin Miller was dedicated to preserving the acres surrounding his home and planted more than 75,000 Monterey pine, Monterey cypress, sequoia, olive, and eucalyptus trees. After his death, the City of Oakland purchased 68 acres from the estate of Joaquin Miller. In 1928 the Save the Redwoods League purchased additional acreage, bringing the park total to approximately 425 acres.

Today the park offers scenic trails and a wealth of recreational (e.g., hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking), educational, and cultural opportunities. Recreational use of the park has increased steadily over the past few decades, and recently there has been public concern over the health of the redwood forest, erosion of the trail network, and downstream sedimentation in Palo Seco Creek and Sausal Creek (Tony Acosta, personal communication, 2000).

METHODOLOGY

William Lettis & Associates conducted field assessments of the 11 areas of concern identified by the City of Oakland (Areas A through K on Figure 1) in order to characterize soils and document the nature and extent of erosion on the trails and watercourses in Joaquin Miller Park. Natural Resources Management Corporation conducted field surveys to assess the general health of the redwood forest and understory vegetation. In particular, their surveys were designed to assess whether the existing trail use is having a detrimental effect on tree health and growth.

The general characteristics of soils in the redwood forest in Joaquin Miller Park were determined by describing soils from four hand-auger holes. A 1.5 meter long hand auger was used to obtain samples of the soils for inspection. In order to document the variability of soils existing in different topographic locations, we described one soil in a valley bottom, two on a ridgetop, and one on the flank of the ridge. Soils were described according to the methods of the Soil Survey Division Staff (1993) and Birkeland et al. (1991) and include horizon thickness, nature of horizon boundaries, color, percent gravel, estimated clay content, texture, structure, wet and moist consistence, and the abundance of roots and pores.

Sources of erosion and sediment production from trails were identified by walking the trail network. At each significant erosion feature observed on the trail system (features numbered 1-27 on Figure 1 and Table 1), qualitative and quantitative baseline erosion data were recorded on field data sheets (located in Appendix 1). Erosion data collected included location of feature, nature of feature, volume of past erosion, potential for future

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