Watercourses

The watercourses in Joaquin Miller park were found to be in excellent condition. The four main creeks that drain the redwood forest in the southern portion of the park have steep channel gradients, deep v-shaped canyons, and often flow on bedrock. These channels have occasional bank failures related to saturated slopes and high stream flow. The stream that parallels the Cinderella Trail upstream of the junction with Sunset Trail has steep valley walls and has had natural bank failures caused by high flows. Upstream of erosion feature 10, the creek has a shallower gradient, thick brush, and no landslide or bank failure problems. We noted no major effect of recreational land use on these channels.

Palo Seco Creek itself has a relatively shallow channel gradient through the Upper Meadow and Lower Meadow areas. The channel gradient of this creek is steeper north of the Sinawik Cabin. This portion of the creek has experienced a few stream bank landslides that have contributed large volumes of sediment to the creek in the past. One of these landslides, erosion feature 4, occurred within the past few winters and the majority of the sediment is still present in the stream channel.

Soils

Soils were described by WLA geologists in four locations within the redwood forest in the general vicinity of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) historical marker and the Big Trees Trail. Soil-profiles SP-1 and SP-2 were located on the ridgecrest, soil-profile SP-3 was located on the west flank of the ridge, and soil profile SP-4 was located in the adjacent valley bottom (Figure 1). Care was taken to avoid the centers of obvious “fairy rings” (rings of second-growth redwood trees that sprouted from the base of a logged old-growth tree) and areas of bedrock outcrop. All four profiles were similar in the degree of development and character of horizons, but differed slightly in the depth and thickness of horizons and to a minor extent in clay content and structure. All are residual soils developed on sandstone bedrock. They are characterized by an organic horizon of leaf litter and humus, underlain by a very friable dark gray, loamy A-horizon that grades downward into either a weak B horizon or C horizon of weathered sandstone bedrock or sandstone-derived colluvium.

The O horizon (organic horizon) consists of two subhorizons (O1 and O2) both of which are relatively thin. The O1 horizon consists of redwood leaf litter, including twigs, needles, and cones. This leaf litter is about 3 cm deep and has an abrupt smooth boundary with the underlying O2 horizon. The O2 horizon is porous, light humus and decomposed leaf litter in which some individual needles and twig fragments can still be recognized but all are matted together in a soft spongy mass with abundant fine to medium roots. The roots are presumed to belong to the redwood trees as there are no other tree species in the vicinity and we have noted similar root mats in other redwood forests. The O2 horizon is 7 to 10 cm thick and has an abrupt boundary with the underlying A horizon.