Once over the ridge, the view into the Los Angeles valley is strikingly different than the view into San Gerardo. Where the view of San Gerardo has been hugely affected by the reforestation at Cloudbridge, the view into Los Angeles is still open farmland and pasture:
You can see all the way down the valley, in fact, directly to San Isidro (the blue V in the distance):
It was a beautiful walk, and although the open fields represent what Cloudbridge is hoping to fill in and undo, they speak to the agricultural history of the area.
Many farmers are currently taking steps to turn their farms into fully organic operations, using complex set-ups to harvest waste for worm-composting, manure fertilizers, and bio-gas; looking at these efforts, which are based on an understanding of the impacts of chemicals, makes me excited about the future of agriculture in this valley. It’s been a part of this valley for a long time, and so we can’t ask farmers to give up their livelihoods. But watching farmers make the conscious decision to work in a more labor-intensive way so as to have less impact on their environment and the river makes me able to embrace the idea of leaving some of the land here open to farming.
That said, Cloudbridge is hoping to work with private land owners between here and the coast to encourage them to allow natural regrowth on their property (especially of fruiting trees that provide food to altitudinal migrants such as the quetzal), so that we can begin to construct tendrils of biological corridor outwards from our mountain nook. And, let’s be honest, we all just really want to see more quetzals.
On the subject of biodiversity, I did encounter this little guy - perhaps less glamorous than a quetzal, but no less exciting (in theory):
And a few days ago we saw a Caecilian, which is a legless salamander - incredibly rare to see. It was wriggling across the road in heavy rain, and looked like a giant worm at first glance. Predictably, I did not have my camera.
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