Wonderful vistas at Wind Wolves Preserve

And why nonprofit nature preservations are worth celebrating!

The gentle breeze sweep through the wild land grasses making it look like rolling waves. These soothing motions are what gave the name to the Wind Wolves Preserve, that is what the local Chumash and Yokut tribes described them as.

From Redlands be warned that it took us close to three hours to get to the preserve. Tucked into the San Emigdio Mountains and Pleito hills south of Bakersfield, the preserve’s 93,000 acres are homes to tule elks, the endangered Joaquin kit fox, the California condor and Bakersfield cactus.

Thanks to Redlands Conservancy we had the opportunity to go on a sunset safari. An event that usually is reserved for potential and current generous donors. Our guide Travis drove us in a four wheel Jeep cruising hillsides and valleys, over pot holes and muddy creeks, mostly in areas not open for the public.

This is a longer read, jump aboard our Jeep and take in the views.

Right from the start of our four hour trek, we got to see the plump Bakersfield cacti, recently re-introduced on a large area of rolling hills. In nature’s cruel irony the area was hit by lightning and burned the whole area into a crisp, and yet many of the Bakersfield cacti had survived.

We were greeted by a few elks grazing in the dry grasses, they looked a little suspicious at us and trodded a few steps away. There was a small elk calf further up the hillside all alone (can you spot it in the photo?). Where is your mom? We wondered.

For the first stop getting out of the Jeep we had to climb big boulders dotted with numerous bedrock mortars that Travis said were between 500 and 5,000 years old. I imagined an industrial sized kitchen, that’s how many holes there were. One hole was several inches deep, which must have taken generations achieving this kind of depth. After all this was an area where there had been a large Chumash/Yokut village. A village where several tribes intermingled and married each other. Back then people made acorn flour and other foods grinding holes in the flat rock surface. This area was inside the restricted area, possibly to protect the ancient history there.

After another five minutes drive we arrived at a large rock formation tucked into the mountain where we could glimpse some of the best preserved prehistoric cave paintings. I thought that maybe the Chumash/Yokut people used some of the grinding holes for creating the vivid colors of dark red ochre.

One figure in particular was especially sharp in its contours. Three pronged at the top and bottom with something resembling wings underneath the top prongs. I thought of a large insect, but Travis corrected me that it was indeed a female figure.

A horizontal line with several markings would throughout the year be hit each day with shadows from the sun, slowly moving through the line like an annual calendar. Genius.

(For a shorter drive to bedrock mortars and cave paintings, visit Idyllwild Nature Center)

Even though we traversed some of the non-public roads in the preserve. There are more than 20 miles of trails for the public to use, visiting the Wind Wolves Preserve which is free year round. There are camp grounds one can book. Guided hikes and family events are offered year round, like a hike with ghost stories during Halloween.

We heard one of the stories from the area when we reached the El Camino Viejo road. A road that first was a Chumash trail 5,000 years old, then it became the route from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 1793 named El Camino Viejo. Tree tops hung over the trail, at one time it followed the creek and the hillsides provided many great hiding spots as far as I could tell.

This is where the horse thieves and outlaws were. For example Joaquin Murrieta who robbed and killed during the California gold rush, sometimes named the Robin Hood of El Dorado. One legend says he killed 30 people in a month!

Other famous horse thieves roamed the area, for example Tiburcio Vasquez (fun fact: his grandfather arrived with the Juan Batista de Anza expedition that established the presidio that became San Francisco). Vasquez stole 300 horses in a year. It was an easy ‘business’ bringing stolen horses to sell south of the border to Mexico.

Thomas Pegleg Smith was another famous horse thief, who supposedly stole 5,000 horses (fun fact: there is not only a monument named after him in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, there is also the Pegleg Smith Liars Contest held at the state park annually).

El Camino Viejo Road was once connected all the way to Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles.

Our knowledgeable guide Travis is one of 13 employees at the Wind Wolves Preserve. He has worked at the preserve for the past eight years. The Preserve was established in 1996, previously it was the San Emidio Ranch, once owned by John C. Fremont. Before the takeover, an oil company owned the property, and there was an idea to built homes into the expansive nature acreage.

Thankfully, the area is now free for all of us to enjoy. The preserve has re-introduced the tule elk with first 19 elks, then another 100 which now has grown to over 400 individuals. In one day Travis and one of his colleagues saw 15 individual black bears in a small forest area. And he has met mountain lions up close, which has been an exciting albeit frightening part of his job.

We drove through oak lands, grasslands and traveled up and down the lower mountain ranges. Besides elks, we saw plenty of wild coyotes looking healthy and alert, eagles, ground squirrels and mule deer. There were hundreds of cows grazing the lands, bringing the risk of wildfires down and providing supporting income to the preserve.

The last stop was sunset dinner at one of the public viewpoints, looking into the San Joaquin Valley. Sequoia Sandwich Company provided yummy salads and sandwiches for us, though the deserts of decadent butterfinger cheesecake, carrot cake and bigger than palm sized cookies took top prize.

To think that Wind Wolves Preserve is the West Coast’s largest nonprofit preserve, it’s worth the drive and worth coming back to explore even further. (I want to see the Californian condor!)

Learn more: www.wildlandsconservancy.org

And support our local conservancy here: www.redlandsconservancy.org

I hope you enjoyed the trip to Wind Wolves Preserve. The variety of landscapes in Southern California which we have access to easily from Redlands is awe inspiring.