We just completed our staff team-building trip — an overnight at the Black Mountain backpacking camp in Montebello Open Space Preserve. The camp site is at the very top of the Adobe Creek watershed, about 12 miles upstream from the EcoJustice Camp location in Palo Alto. On the hike up, we saw four White-tailed Kites sitting in a tree (two were juveniles, so probably two parents with recent fledglings); we looked at the sag pond along the trail to the camp; and we talked about how humans have interacted with this spectacular landscape since the time when Ohlones lived here, through early settlement by humans of European descent, up to the present day.

Here’s a photo of Mike coming up the trail, with the sunset in the background (photo credit Olivia Nayler):

And here are Dan, Olivia, and Mike about to head back down the trail in the morning, after breaking camp (photo credit Kyndall Abraham):