A gem amid Napa Valley’s ashes
Lake Marie is a gem of a pond tucked in a valley in the Bay Area foothills.
It passes the “Blindfold Test,” in which you are taken to a park site, the blindfold is removed and with your first glimpse, you have no idea where you are.
The small lake is edged by steep sloping hills, already green and glowing in the February sun, and backed by a deep wooded ravine. Within a mile is a site with ancient grinding mortars in the rock near a spring. You need more clues?
On the trail to the lake and beyond, you can see areas with a mosaic of fire damage. In some places, ash from last fall’s wildfires is still on the ground. That should narrow it down a bit, right?
On the ridge, you get sweeping views of the Napa Valley to Mount St. Helena.
With these clues, if you’ve been here, you know that this is the description of Skyline Wilderness Park, located in the southeast corner of Napa. This is a regional park with 25 miles of trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding. There are also picnic sites, a campground for tents and RVs, and an upland habitat where sightings of wildlife include deer, wild turkeys and red-tailed hawks.
Lake Marie and Skyline Wilderness Park are symbols of the hope that is rising out of the ashes.
“What is old is new again,” said Richard Degraffenreid, who helped coordinate a hike here last week with a few supporters of the East Bay Hills People, a group dedicated to locating and protecting American Indian sites in the Bay Area. Others on this hike were James Benny and Robert Bardell.
Mosaic of fire
As with many local and regional parks, Skyline Wilderness is overlooked by many who live outside its 10-mile bubble. If you have driven through Napa to get to Lake Berryessa, though, you were less than 2 miles from the park entrance, picnic area, drive-in campsites and trailheads.
To reach Lake Marie (elevation 798 feet), it’s a 2.2-mile, one-way trek with a 650-foot climb (some routes have another 100 feet of climb built into them). There are many trails available to get there (be sure to have a map to find your trailhead of choice). The main route is Lake Marie Road, a popular mountain bike ride, which is routed to the dam (you don’t see many bikes past the lake).
Another route is the Skyline Trail, which doubles as a piece of the Bay Area Ridge Trail. Before you reach the lake, just beyond the junction of Buckeye Trail, there is a good lookout. The views of the valley are spectacular.
“It’s pretty remarkable, how you can see how the entire Napa Valley was circled by fire,” Degraffenreid said. “The views of the burn zone are both awe-inspiring and frightening.”
On the way to the lake, the route travels through a mosaic of burned areas, where even the ancient oaks have been rendered into tree skeletons amid a backdrop of ash. Degraffenreid noted that at this time of year, with so many plants and trees yet to leaf out and at the same time much of the brush burned out, you can see far more, both near and far.
As part of a 7-mile hike, they found an American Indian village site on the Upper Marine Creek Trail. At one spot, you could see the hollowed-out mortars once used as grinding bowls for acorns. The group used their detective skills to find more than 30 mortars.
Beyond Lake Marie, you can continue to Thatchers Rim Rock Trail. Turn left and you can climb to 1,630-foot Sugarloaf Peak, a 1,500-foot climb from the park entrance.
In one sweep of the eye, you can take in the old, the burned and the new.
“It’s pretty remarkable, how you can see how the entire Napa Valley was circled by fire. The views of the burn zone are both awe-inspiring and frightening.” Richard Degraffenreid