California's Best Nature Walks by Charles Hood

Author:Charles Hood [Hood, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: 2023-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Salt Creek in Death Valley is home to an endemic fish, the Salt Creek pupfish.

Fossil Falls

A former river that is full of carved, fun-to-explore rocks, plus top-notch lizard-spotting

Difficulty

Easy

Location

Off Highway 395 and Cinder Road, north of Little Lake

Length

1 to 2 miles

A Great Basin collared lizard is ready for its close-up.

This site is at its best and at its worst at 10 a.m. on a July morning. Best because that is when the largest lizards are most active on the dark rocks. There are two striking species here, both colorful. The Great Basin or desert collared lizard is orange, green, and blue, with a black-banded neck. They are 10 inches long. Larger and darker and more like an iguana, 16-inch chuckwallas can be seen on the tallest ridges of rock—until you get too close. Then they retreat into narrow crevices, where they gulp in air to expand their bodies, wedging so tightly no kit fox or herpetologist trainee can drag them out. And there are smaller kinds here, too, like the side-blotched lizard, just a few inches long.

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